Miscellanies. 405 



tation. He ascertained that the efficacy of burnt sponge depended 

 upon the Iodine which it contained, and that similar benefit wonld 

 be obtained by using the iodine separately, as in morphine, qui- 

 nine, &;c. Two subsequent memoirs, on the subject, established this 

 as the best remedy in goitre, scrophula, and some lymphatic diseases 

 of the system. This brilliant discovery, which the experience of 

 twelve years has sanctioned, was deemed by the Academy of Scien- 

 ces of Paris to be worthy of their grand prize of three thousand 

 francs, which was decreed to the author in 1832. In 1823, he 

 published in the same journal, a Note on the properties and use of 

 sulphate of quinine in intermitting fevers. Dr. Coindet was the 

 founder, and long the president of the Medical Society of the Can- 

 ton of Geneva. He was twice a representative of the Canton in 

 the General Council. In the midst of his usefulness, he was obli- 

 ged to leave Geneva, for the milder climate of Nice, where he was 

 taken off by severe disease. 



27. Le Chevalier John Aldini, formerly professor of Natural 

 Philosophy at the University of Bologna, died at Milan, on the 17th 

 January, 1834, at the age of seventy one. He is knomi by vari- 

 ous useful scientific labors. A relative of the celebrated Galvani, 

 he pursued the train which the new discoveries opened and publish- 

 ed in London in 1803, the experiment which he had made upon the 

 dead bodies of criminals. In 1823 he published an Essay on the 

 best means of constructing light houses and lighting them by oil 

 or gas. He was latterly much occupied with the means of preserv- 

 ing fire men and others from the effects of heat and flame, and in 

 1830, the prize founded by De Montyon, was decreed him by the 

 Academy of Sciences at Paris. A particular account of his methods 

 of preservation will be found in vol. xx, of this Journal. The last 

 labor of this ingenious philosopher, was an apparatus for measuring 

 the smallest fraction of a second, in experiments on the descent of 

 heavy bodies, and in other cases. 



28. Gastric Liquor. 



The subsequent letter relates to a portion of gastric liquor, which, 

 at my suggestion. Dr. Beaumont withdrew from the stomach of the 

 man whose case was mentioned in this Journal, Vol. xxii, pa. 193, 

 and forwarded to Prof Berzelius, with the hope that it would prove 



