121. iiEPORT— 1873. 



distance from the insect, are found to ba bending over towards it, and to be almost 

 in contact with it. After a time the insect is to all appearance digested, actually 

 supplying- the tissue of the leaf with nourishment. Very nearly the same effect 

 was produced by substituting for the fly a piece of raw meat, the movements 

 of the glands being somewhat slower, but ultimately almost as complete, the 

 meat being apparently digested in the same manner. On other leaves were 

 placed a minute piece of wood and a small piece of worsted ; and in neither of 

 these cases was the least change perceptible, after a considerable time, in the posi- 

 tion of the glands nor of the object itself. 



On the Action of Alcohol on Wann-Uooded Animals. Bt) Dr. Eixz, of Bonn. 



Phi/siolor/ical Ri'secu-ches on thi Nature of Cholera. Bij Dr. LitroER Bruntox. 



The search after a true remedy for cholera, the author thought, had hitherto been 

 fruitless. Tlie cause of the disease was now generally admitted to be a poison of 

 some sort which could be transmitted from one person to another ; but there must 

 also be a proper soil for the development of the poison — in other words, the blood 

 and tissues must be in such a state that it can act upon them. 



In the state of collapse there was constant vomiting and purging, and the intestinal 

 canal was speedily washed clean out, the stools consisting of the secretion alone ; 

 the blood stagnated in the great veins of the thorax and abdomen, and left the skin 

 shrunken, pale, and cold, the interior of the body being hotter even than in a state of 

 liigh fever. That blood which filled the small cutaneous veins being no longer 

 driven forward by fresh supplies from the arteries, became completely deoxidized 

 and black, imparting to the surface a livid hue. It still retained its power to take up 

 oxygen and give olf carbonic acid ; but, notwithstanding this, it passed so slowly 

 through the pulmonary vessels that only about one third of the usual quantity of 

 carbonic acid was given oft' from the lungs ; and little oxygen being taken in, there 

 was a distressing feeling of want of breath. At the same time the voice was hoarse, 

 low, and weak ; but this seemed to be simply a consequence of the general exhaus- 

 tion of the patient. 



The symptoms of cholera all arose from disturbance of the circulation .and altera- 

 tion of the intestinal secretion ; and it might be thought that the only means of re- 

 moving those conditions would be to eliminate from the body that poison which was 

 producing these effects, and that so long as it was still circulating in the blood, 

 any remedy which was simply intended to counteract it would be administered 

 in vain. Eut the researches of Fraser and others on antagonism had shown that 

 the elimination of a poison was not required in order to prevent its injurious or fatal 

 action ; the administration of an antidote would deprive it of its hurtful power ; and 

 as it was with other poisons so might it be with that of cholera. It occurred to Dr. 

 Brunton that if any poison should possess actions similar to those of cholera-poison, 

 an antidote to it might possibly pro^e to be a remedy for cholera. He therefoi-e 

 began to look for a drug which woidd produce the same chancres in the circulation 

 which occurred in cholera. These were, he believed, first attributed by Dr. Parkes 

 to spasmodic contraction of tlie pulmonary vessels, which prevented the blood from 

 passing through them ; and this opinion had found a warm supporter in Dr. George 

 Johnson. Most of the symptoms, though not all, could be explained on this 

 hj-pothesis. 



Professor Schmiedebevg, in investigating the physiological action of a poisonous 

 mushroom the (Ainaiiifd muscaria or Af/aricus viuscarius), noticed that when 

 given to animals it caused great dyspnoea, and at the same time the arteries became 

 empty, so that when cut across hardly a drop of blood issued from them — the very 

 condition which existed in cholera. Administering atropia to the warm-blooded 

 animals suffering from these symptoms, Professor Schmiedeberg found that they at 

 once recovered. lie had not thought at all, however, of contraction of the pulmo- 

 nary vessels as a cause of dyspnoea. He attributed it rather to excitement of the 

 nervous centre in the paeduUa oblongata, which regulates the respiratory move- 



