September 3, 1886.] 



SCIENCE. 



209 



most accurate statements, and the most scientifi- 

 cally written papers on the subject. After a long 

 series of experiments, the conckisions obtained 

 were that rotifers can be brought back to life after 

 having remained ninety days in a dry vacuum, 

 and having been submitted to the influence of a 

 thirty-minutes' sojourn in an oven heated to 100* 

 Celsius, that is, after having been as completely 

 desiccated as can be. These are precise and accu- 

 rate facts : the committee remarked, also, that the 

 revivification of Anguillulae may be effected at 

 least twenty-eight years after desiccation ; and, 

 following Leuwenhoeck's opinion, M. Broca be- 

 lieved that during desiccation vital phenomena 

 were much reduced, but not wholly suspended. 

 Upon the whole, M. Pennetier's experiments do 

 not give any new result, but they confirm what 

 has already been said. This power of revivifica- 

 tion is a very singular one, concerning which a 

 great deal remains to be learned, especially as re- 

 gards other species. It certainly cannot be believed 

 that desiccated animals which can be re-animated 

 by moisture are really dead : they are in the state 

 called by Preyer vitae capax, — a state that is not 

 real actvial life, but potential life ; a state interme- 

 diate between life and death, but much nearer the 

 former than the latter. 



A new monthly paper has been recently issued 

 in Paris, of which only two numbers have yet ap- 

 peared. It is the hevue de Vhypnotisme, and is 

 edited by Dr. E. Berillon, with the co-operation of 

 many scientists, such as Bernheim, Hack-Tuke, 

 Grasset, Treland, Luys, Ochorowicz, Magnin, Voi- 

 sin, Liegeois, and others. M. Berillon has behind 

 him no works to speak for his competency, and is 

 a rather young man. His co-operators are, gener- 

 ally speaking, very able men ; but it must be con- 

 fessed that hypnotism is as yet a rather young 

 science, and requires to be pushed somewhat fur- 

 ther before a paper can be usefully devoted to it. 

 The Revue de Vhypnotisme contains, however, some 

 vahiable contributions, among which we notice 

 especially a paper by Dr. Voisin on therapeutical 

 applications of hypnotism in cases where the disease 

 is more a moral than a physical one. The author 

 relates a case in which hypnotism has been of 

 great use, and has evidently improved the morals 

 of the patient. M. Liegeois contributes an inter- 

 esting paper on hypnotism induced by telephone : 

 the experiments succeed as well as if the different 

 acts had been directly suggested, without any tele- 

 phone. These two papers excepted, there is noth- 

 ing new nor interesting in this young periodical. 



M. Molliere of Lyon recently made known an 

 old and very rare book, published a century ago, 

 in which one may find the beginning of Pasteur's 

 theory of pathogenetical germs, or microbes. This 



book was published at the time of the Mar- 

 seilles pest, and its title is ' Observations f aites S'ur 

 la peste qui regne a present a Marseille et dans la 

 Pi-ovence.' The author was Goiffon, a botanist 

 and physician of Lyon. According to Goiffon, the 

 disease is due to some poison which comes into the 

 body from outside. The poison is believed by him 

 to be some living creature which can multiply 

 without losing its pathogenetic jiroperties. Having 

 never seen any microbes, he considers the cause of 

 the disease as residing in some worm or insect 

 brought from foreign countries with foreign goods. 

 "Measles," says he, "and small- pox, which are 

 recognized as contagious diseases, are perhaps due, 

 as well as many epidemical diseases, to some spe- 

 cial sort of Little worms, or imperceiitible insects, 

 which force themselves into the body of those who 

 become sick, and stick to the clothes of those who 

 propagate the sickness." He believes also that 

 bovine vert is "caused by small worms deposited 

 on the hay and grass the herds eat ; and the ulcera- 

 tions that most diseased animals show on the 

 tongue and in the mouth confirm this view." 

 Further oa he says that the spread of the disease, 

 when once introduced into a country, is due to the 

 dissemination of the eggs of these worms or in- 

 sects. The fact that more than a century ago the 

 cause of different contagious diseases was believed 

 to be some living organism, is all the more inter- 

 esting that it was entirely forgotten. Manget, the 

 Swiss author of many important medical and ana- 

 tomical works, was the only one who beheved in 

 Goiffon's theory; he even remarks that Father 

 Kircher, the well-known scientist and alchemist, 

 had proposed a similar theory. Goiffon's work is 

 a very interesting one, and M. Molliere has done 

 well in republishing this forgotten old book. 



MM. Charbonnel-Salle and Phisalix of Besan- 

 9on have recently published the results of their 

 experiments concerning the pharyngeal and 

 oesophageal secretion of pigeons and other birds, 

 which is used by them to feed their young. It 

 was Hunter who discovered this phenomenon, and 

 first described it. CI. Bernard compared this 

 secretion with milk, and believed it was caused by 

 a very active cellular multiplication of the epithe- 

 lium of the oesophageal tract. Other physiologists 

 attributed the secretion to some glands. MM. 

 Charbonnel Salle and Phisalix show that CI. Ber- 

 nard's opinion is correct. They find no glands 

 at all : and the secretion is made up of epthelial 

 cells of the oesophagus. It is known that the edible 

 bird's-nest substance found in the nest of Ccllo- 

 calia nidifica and other swifts, is, on the contrary, 

 the secretion of special glands described by Sir 

 Everard Home in 1817, as Bernstein's and J. R. 

 Green's researches also prove. The origin of the 



