June 3, 1910] 



SCIENCE 



859 



of gases, one of the greatest modern physicists 

 informs us, is " lost in antiquity." The 

 atomic theory of matter is accurately stated 

 in the " De rerum natura " of Lucretius, who 

 got it from its Greek author Democritus; and 

 Lord Kelvin, in his ingenious essay " jEpinus 

 atomized," has indicated that the essential 

 features of the electronic theory of matter had 

 already been stated over a hundred years be- 

 fore, by the Eostock physicist Franz Hoch 

 (1759). Who can doubt that the Greek sci- 

 entists owed much to the learned Orientals 

 and Egyptians who preceded them? We may 

 take comfort then in the shrewd observation 

 of the author of " Hudibras " that the specu- 

 lative theorist is often several generations 

 behindhand : 



" For Anaxagoras long agone. 



Saw hills, as well as you, in the moon; 



And held the sun was but a piece 



Of red hot iron, as big as Greece; 



Believ'd the heavens were made of stone. 



Because the sun had voided one; 



And, rather than he would recant 



The opinion, suffered banishment." 



F. H. Garrison 

 Army Medical Museum 



" a comment on asphyxia 

 Some surprising material is contained in 

 Dr. John Auer's reply^ to a note on the " Ef- 

 fect of Asphyxia on the Pupil," by A. H. 

 Eyan, F. V. Guthrie and myself.^ As he does 

 not present any evidence against, nor even 

 deny the accuracy of our observations on, the 

 phenomenon to which we recalled attention by 

 the statement that as a rule a very marked 

 constriction of the pupils occurs in an early 

 stage of asphyxia, no reply is necessary. 



But since he attempts to account for our 

 statement by saying that had we pushed our 

 experiments further we " would have found 

 the marked dilatation of the pupil which oc- 

 curs in mammals during the second and third 

 stages of asphyxia," as the senior author of the 

 note I feel it incumbent upon me to make cer- 

 tain statements in order that those not thor- 



» Science, N. S., 1910, XXXI., 578. 



= Science, N. S., 1910, XXXI., 395-396. 



oughly conversant with the subject may not 

 receive erroneous impressions regarding the 

 phenomena of asphyxia on the pupil. 



It would seem that the classical phenomena 

 of asphyxia are too well knovm to require 

 mention, but in view of the above, I will here 

 give an elementary statement of them taken 

 from Starling," to whom we referred in our 

 communication : 



The phenomena of asphyxia may be divided into 

 three stages : 



1. In the first stage, that of hyperpnoea, the 

 respiratoiy movements are increased in amplitude 

 and in rhythm. This increase affects at first both 

 inspiratory and expiratory muscles. Gradually 

 the force of the expiratory movements become 

 increased out of all proportion to the inspiratory, 

 and the first stage merges into: 



2. The second, which consists of expiratory con- 

 vulsions, in which almost every muscle of the body 

 may be involved. Just at the end of the first 

 stage consciousness is lost, and almost imme- 

 diately after the loss of consciousness we may 

 observe a number of phenomena extending to 

 almost all the functions of the body, some of 

 which have been already studied. Thus at this 

 time the vasomotor center is excited, causing 

 universal vascular constriction. There is often 

 also secretion of saliva, inhibition or increase of 

 intestinal movements, constriction of the pupil* 

 and so on. 



3. At the end of the second minute after the 

 stoppage of the aeration of the blood, the expira- 

 tory convulsions cease almost suddenly, and give 

 way to slow deep inspirations. With each inspira- 

 tory spasm the animal stretches itself out, and 

 opens its mouth widely as if gasping for breath. 

 The whole stage is one of exhaustion; the pupils 

 dilate widely* and all reflexes are abolished. The 

 pauses between the inspirations become longer and 

 longer, until at the end of four or five minutes 

 the animal takes its last breath. 



Therefore, the implication that we were 

 not aware that dilatation of the pupil occurs 

 in a later stage of asphyxia is unworthy of 

 further mention. Nor need any attention be 

 paid to the term " original communication " 

 applied to our note, for by this fact alone he 

 shows that he had not read it even with 



' " Elements of Human Physiology," 1907, 8th 

 edition, pp. 404-405. 

 ' Italics mine. 



