750 KEPORT— 1S92. 



recently adopted by D'Arsonval. He described sliortly the apparatus coustructed 

 by himself, and gave a brief account of some of the results he obtained by his 

 experiments. These extend to the heat-production in different conditions of the 

 normal state and of fever. As to the latter, he found that heat-production is not 

 augmented in fever produced by injection of putrid matters. But in a few 

 experiments he made on men he found a small aiigmentation ; and so he thinks 

 that there are two types of fever with different causes of rising temperature. 



Among the other objects of his investigations he principally mentioned the 

 connection between nutrition and heat-production. According to his i-esearches 

 there is no strict proportion between the two, because the mixture of materials 

 burnt in the body changes from hour to hour. After a rich meal the heat-produc- 

 tion rises to a maximum point, falls then very rapidly, and is nearly constant 

 tetween the thirteenth and twenty-fourth hour. It is nearly the same with the 

 expiration, of carbonic acid. But the changes of both functions are not quite 

 proportional to each other. The expiration of carbonic acid rises more quickly, 

 and reaches its maximum point earlier. So the ratio between both functions 

 varies. And this is also the case in animals differently nourished, and in cases 

 where heat-production changes in consequence of variations of the outer tempera- 

 ture or of muscular action. The combined investigation of heat-production and 

 of the expired carbonic acid enables us to understand better the chemical processes 

 going on in the system. The changing ratio between both shows that the mixture 

 of materials oxidised in the body varies from hour to hour. Therefore it was 

 impossible to find a strict accordance between heat-production and excretion until 

 the new method enabled one to measure the heat produced during long periods 

 of time, and to show exactly that animal heat also is produced only by oxidation, 

 and that the law of the conservation of energy is true for the living body as in all 

 other cases of combustion. 



o. Proteid HiiiJrocldon'dex. 

 Bij A. LocKHAiiT GiLLESPii;, M.B., CM., F.R.C.P.E. 



In applying this name to the r/ebundene Salzsiiure of the German writers, the 

 author seeks to accentuate the part proteids play in the combination. His views 

 with regard to them are as follows : — 



All proteid substances have an affinity for hydrochloric acid. The lower 

 proteids in the series combine with a greater percentage of IICl than the higher. 

 The percentage varies from per cent, in the case of acid albumen to 18 or 20 per 

 cent, in peptone. The greater affinity which the lower proteids have for hydro- 

 chloric acid compared with the higher may indicate the mode of their formation. 



II 

 If —a = a — were considered to be the primary proteid molecule, the ultimate 

 composition of which may be at present disregarded, but which is quadrivalent, 

 serum albumen would be : — 



H..() ir.,0 H.,0 H.,() 



I I I r 



a ^ a a = fl 



/ \ X \ 



H„0— rt a— a ^/— H.,0 



II II II II 



H.,0-rf a— a ,i-lLO 



\ / \ / ' 



a = a a = a 



II II 



H„0 H,0 H,,0 H,0 



Acid albumen would be formed by the substitution of six molecules of HCI 

 for six molecuiea of water. If more HCI combined, in the presence of pepaiue, 



