418 eeport — 1879. 



of the British Medical Association in Cork, are also to be demonstrated by this 

 method in blood a month sealed. 



I have as yet not had sufficient opportunities of experimenting with blood 

 absolutely free from possibility of malarial infection to speak with certainty about 

 the development of organisms in healthy blood ; but so far as my experience goes 

 the appearance after a few days of bacterial bodies with more than Brownian 

 motion, which most decidedly do not exist in fresh blood, is the rule rather than 

 the exception. 



I have not, however, found any samples of blood subject to a definite sponta- 

 neous putrescence. The only change apparent is that the serum, at first of a faint 

 greenish tinge and opaline, becomes more transparent and acquires a crimson 

 colour. 



2. On the Stroma of Mammalian Red Blood Corpuscles. 

 By L. C. Wooldridge, B.Sc. Land. 



A new method of preparing stroma by means of dilute sulphuric acid was de- 

 scribed, the advantages of which were, that it gave a stroma retaining perfectly 

 the shape of the original corpuscle, and that it was a very expeditious method. 



The Stroma itself consists of — 



1. Globulin. 



2. An albumin, probably alkali albumin. 



3. An albuminoid body, containing phosphorus ; soluble in dilute soda, insoluble 

 in dilute acid, and insoluble by digestion with artificial gastric. 



4. A crystalline body, extracted by ether, which is not fat or cholesterin, nor 

 does it contain any phosphorus ; its other properties have not yet been investigated. 



The research was mostly carried out under the supervision of Prof. Drechsel, in 

 Prof. Ludwig's Laboratory, at Leipzig. 



3. Note on Crystallisation of Urea in presence of a Colloid. 

 By Dr. W. M. Ord. 



4. The Nervous System of Comatula. By P. Herbert Carpenter, M.A. 



Although there is a close histological resemblance between the ambulacral 

 nerves of the starfishes and Crinoids, there is one important point of difference 

 between them. The ambulacral nerves of the starfishes, at any rate of the Ophiurids, 

 send off branches to the muscular bundles which connect successive joints of the 

 rays, and effect the movements of the animal. The swimming movements of 

 Comatula are far more active than the movements of any starfish, and are also 

 performed with a singidar regularity, while they are effected by the combined 

 contraction of several hundred pairs of muscles ; but no branches are traceable 

 from the ambulacral nerves on to these muscles, such as are known in the Ophiurids. 



Dr. Carpenter's experiments at Naples have shown that these muscles are under 

 the influence of a governing centre which not only regulates their contractions, 

 but co-ordinates these contractions in the most remarkable manner ; and that this 

 centre is situated in the fibrillar envelope of the chambered organ, while the axial 

 cords of the rays and arms are the channels by which the influence of the centre is 

 communicated to the muscles. 



This experimental evidence as to the nervous nature of the axial cords is further 

 supported by the results of anatomical investigation. Sections show that these 

 axial cords give off branches regularly in the centre of each segment of the arms 

 and pinnules ; and that while some of them ramify upon the ends of the muscular 

 bundles, others are traceable into the small marginal leaflets bordering the ambu- 

 lacral grooves, where they break up very minutely and become lost. It has also 

 been discovered that in many tropical Comatula, which have an excentric mouth, 



