July 9, 1886.J 



SCIEJSrCE. 



29 



before trying to explain it, as some would like to, 

 to see if the fact is real and positive. The persons 

 who have witnessed it are certainly very trust- 

 worthy, but this is no guaranty that they had all 

 the requisites for experiiuenting in a satisfactory 

 manner. Deceitfulness is so frequent in persons 

 of hysterical nature, and experimenting is so diffi- 

 cult, as the Hippocratic aphorism says, that such 

 questions ought to be studied only by professional 

 experimenters. One may be a sound philosopher 

 or a good physician, and yet understand nothing 

 about experimenting. As for medical students, 

 their authority in such matters is of little worth. 

 The society ought to appoint a committee to in- 

 vestigate the matters brought forward, and select 

 some professional experimenters of a sceptical 

 tui'n of mind, and somewhat more incredulous 

 than are most of the persons who study, or pre- 

 tend to study, somnambulic phenomena. 



At the meeting of May 17 of the Academy of 

 sciences, the academy presented M. Chevreul, the 

 veteran of French science, with a very fine gift, in 

 commemoration of his hundredth year. As he 

 came into the room, the whole assembly rose, and 

 the px'esident, AdaiiralJurien de laGraviere, made 

 a little speech, in which he very appropriately re- 

 marked "that what we honor and celebrate in 

 your green and majestic old age is not, to be sure, 

 the length of your life : it is, above all, the good 

 use you have made of this exceptional favor of 

 Providence."' The gift made to M. Chevreul con- 

 sists of a bronze by Dubois, representing ' Study 

 and meditation.' It is allegorical, and does not at 

 all represent M. ChevreuFs features, which, it must 

 be said, are not particularly handsome. M. Chev- 

 reul answered briefly and in very feeling terms. 

 It is in August that M. Chevreul's hundredth year 

 will close. It had been decided that it was better 

 to anticipate the anniversary some weeks, because 

 in August many members of the academy are out 

 of Paris, taking some rest, or travelling, and be- 

 cause postponing is rather dangerous with a cen- 

 tenarian. 



Dr. Worms has recently made known to the Acad- 

 emy of medicine the results of his investigations 

 concerning Daltonism and other sorts of color- 

 blindness among the personnel of the Northern 

 railway. The number of persons examined is 

 11,173, and the proportion of defective color-vision 

 is a very small one. Two persons only were utterly 

 incapable of distinguishing one color from an- 

 other ; three were color-blind for red ; six for green ; 

 eighteen mistook green for red ; fifteen could not 

 distinguish green from blue or gray ; fifty-two 

 had a certam weakness in color-vision. Upon the 

 whole, the defects of color-vision are very scarce 

 among the persons examined by M. Worms ; and 



there is not much danger to be feared for railroad 

 travellers from these defects. 



M. Balbiani, professor in the College de France, 

 published some days ago, inihe Revue scientiflque, 

 an interesting paper on viviparous fishes, in an- 

 swer to a letter written by a person of New Orleans 

 concerning a viviparous ray. It seems, from the 

 letter, that this fish is very much disliked by fish- 

 ermen, not only because it is viviparous, and so 

 differs from other fishes, but because it seems also 

 to have menses, like mammalia. Prof essor Balbi- 

 ani contributes an interesting note on the subject, 

 and explains in a very acceptable manner the ap- 

 pearance which so much troubles the New Orleans 

 fishermen. 



Among the recent publications of scientific 

 interest, we may notice Professor Comil's second 

 edition of ' Les bacteries.' This book is a very 

 good one, and the first edition was sold in a few 

 months, so that a second has become necessary. 

 Professor Cornil has added many new facts con- 

 cerning bacteriology, and his book is more val- 

 uable than ever. 



Professor Herzen of Lausanne has published a 

 little work on digestion. He entirely confirms 

 Schiff's theory of jpeptogenes, and shows how 

 well conducted have been this physiologist's ex- 

 periments. Professor Herzen was able to examine 

 a man with a gastric fistula for some time, and 

 has made very useful experiments concerning the 

 therapeutics of dyspepsia. He shows how this 

 disease ought to be treated, rationally, and his 

 book is of practical as well as of scientific in- 

 terest. 



We may also notice the second edition of Pro- 

 fessor Bouchard's ' Maladies dues au ralentisse- 

 ment de la nutrition ' (' Diseases due to retardation 

 of nutrition '). This book is always fuU of sug- 

 gestive facts, and deserves the fame it has enjoyed, 

 since the day it came out. 



M. Miquel, the well-known micrographer, re- 

 cently read at the meeting of the Societe de 

 medecine publique, a paper on horal variations of 

 aerial bacteria. There is a sort of tide with high 

 and low water marks in the distribution of these 

 micro-organisms. There is a first high-water 

 between six and nine a.m., and a second from 

 six to eight p.m. The minima are at two p.m. 

 and two A.M. These differences are also perceived 

 in open rooms, but not in closed apartments. The 

 inference is, that it is better to ventilate rooms 

 from eleven in the evening to five in the morning ; 

 but this is not always very easy and practical. 



Some days ago M. Denika, a pupil of Professor 

 de Lacaze-Duthiers, pubhshed a very interesting 

 thesis on the structure of a gorilla embryo, study- 

 ing all the particulars of the different systems of 



