British Association for the Advancmnent of Science. 51 



as to render them unfit for their functions, and this disease ex- 

 tended throughout the whole series of vessels, until it terminated 

 in a kind of gelatinous pulp. Would this state of the vessels 

 have considerable influence ? and how far would it be concerned 

 in producing that state of blood, always observed in cholera, — 

 when the serum passes off, the blood becoming thick and black ? 

 Many of the French, and some English, thought the nerves in 

 cholera, on its appearance, were comparatively not so vascular, 

 and not much diseased otherwise ; the par vagum, as it passes the 

 subclavian artery, was enlarged like a ganglion. Even animals 

 were seized with cholera, and presented the same morbid appear- 

 ance as in the human subject. 



Dr. Clanny could fully confirm all the observations of Dr. 

 Mackintosh. Dr. Holland inquired, what name he would give 

 .to the affection of the bowels ushering in the cholera, and what 

 was the natme of cholera ? Dr. Mackintosh replied, watery diar- 

 rhoea ; and he would have entered into the nature of the disease, 

 if time could have been afforded hira. 



Bust of Mcecenas. — " It was long a cause of wonder and re- 

 gret that no gem, medal, or statue of a man so illustrious, had ever 

 been discovered. At length the Duke of Orleans, Regent of 

 France, early in the last century, by a happy conjectm-e, fixed on 

 one of the gems in his collection, an amethyst of small size, 

 marked with the nam.e of the engraver, Dioscorides, as being 

 the representation of the head of Mgecenas. Another gem, bear- 

 ing the name of Solon, the engraver, evidently representing the 

 same person, was afterwards found in the Farnesian Museum ; 

 and a third of the same, a sardonyx, also engraved by Solon, has 

 since been discovered in the collection of the Prince Ludovisi. 

 The features given in these gems agree so well with all that has 

 been handed down in the Roman classics, concerning the per- 

 sonal appearance and habits of Msecenas, that the suggestion of 

 the Duke of Orleans has been adopted by all subsequent anti- 

 quaries. A few years after the recognition of the head of Maece- 

 nas on the gems of Dioscorides and Solon, both artists coeval 

 with Augustus, an antique fresco painting was discovered in the 

 ruins of the palace of the Caesars on the Palatine Hill at Rome. 

 This painting represents Augustus surrounded by his courtiers, 

 conferring a crown on the Persian king Phraates, an event spoken 

 of by Horace. In the front rank of the courtiers stands one, evi- 



