TRANSACTIONS OF THE SECTIONS. 1C9 



If not kept wetted the parts soon dry up, and are apt to become covered with a 

 whitish effloresceuce, which is difficult to remove. 



I am inclined to attribute the success in great measure to the repeated injections, 

 a few days interval being allowed between each ; thus the tissues had time to be- 

 come thoroughly impregnated with the fluid ; and it is to that, rather than to the 

 special virtues of the solution, that the result is due. 



It is thus apparent that a tolerably bulky animal may be preserved for dissection 

 at leisure with a moderate amount of trouble and expense— all that is needed 

 beyond the necessary anatomical knowledge and instruments being a sufficient 

 quantity of tlie arsenical fluid (which is quite cheap), a gallon or two of methylated 

 spirit, and a tolerably well-closed box or case in which to deposit the subject. 



On Vegetarianism. Bij C. 0. Groom-N"apier. 



Bearinr/s of " the Conservation of Force" on Life. By P. Hallett, M.A. 



The object of this paper is to consider the modern theory of the conservation of 

 force in connexion with the phenomena of life. 



The autlior holds that these phenomena do not conform to it, but that they 

 rather indicate that life, considered as a natural cause, whatever the nature or 

 essence of that cause may be, has within itself a power of self-propagation and 

 renewal. Though it borrows its materials from the physical universe, it confers on 

 them the vital powers, both general and specific, that they possess through 

 organization. 



On som; new Researches on the Anatomy of the Shin. By Dr.MARTTW, 



The object of this communication was to make known some facts in the ana- 

 tomical structure and growth of the cuticular layer of the skin. In a recent 

 paper the author had described this with reference to disease, and he now had to 

 confirm the view which those appearances led him to predict as holding good for 

 ordinary and healthy epithelium also. 



Twelve years ago Max Schultze observed that the lowest of the cells forming, in 

 many layers, the cuticle were often covered with spines (" Stachel ") or grooves 

 (" Riss "'). His brother confirmed this in fishes, and other observers had done so in 

 many diseases of the skin. The subject attracted little notice, and had scarcely 

 even now reached our English text-books. 



It was in endeavoming to make out the real nature of so strange a structure that 

 the author, by employment of imusually thin sections, staining, and the highest 

 available powers of the microscope, had discovered that the cells which appeared 

 " spinous or " echinate " when isolated from their connexion, if they could be at 

 any time seen in single layers, were simply united together by delicate bands. 

 These are so constantly seen broken across that they assume the form of tubercles 

 or " prickles." As repeated observation confii'med this, the name " conjoined 

 epithelium" had been proposed for this form or stage in cell-life as here 

 exhibited. 



These observations, of which drawings were engraved in the Number of the 

 Monthly Microscopical Journal of the present month, were made on cancer of the 

 skin, in which the cells fortunately become monstrous. 



Now the author was in a position to say that the "conjoined" epithelium was 

 also to be found in (1) human skin, (2) the front of the eye in the pig, (3) the lips 

 of at least one fish {Zeus faher). The sturgeon was just now under investigation. 



The difficulty of making the structure clear in a healthy animal cuticle was 

 d) the intense cohesion of these very cells, so that, in trj-ing to stretch, one iisually 

 breaks the uniting bands ; (2) the necessity for using a high power, the yV> with 

 800-1000 diameters, being required to make sure of the nature of the bands. _ 



The interest of the subject lies in this direction. All the cells of which living 

 things at any moment consist were produced by division of a parent, either into 



1875. 13 



