648 FOREIGN CORRESPONDENCE. 



will be increased, and add to the changes of the virus being discharged ; of 

 course the burning is to be applied subsequently. M. Mennerson has em- 

 ployed electricity to calm the spasms in a young veterinary surgeon afflicted 

 with hydrophobia, when chloroform failed to produce relief — iu fact the 

 anaesthetic only augmented the spasms ; he applied the wires to the back of 

 the neck and the soles of the feet; immediately tranquility ensued; the 

 patient could eat, drink and talk ; the sight of liquids did not agitate him. 

 Unable, however, to support the continued action of the current, electricity 

 was discontinued; the spasms returned, more violent than ever, and later, 

 the heart suddenly stopped. Dr. Proust alleges instances where mad dogs 

 had 80 little horror of water that they swam across rivers to attack 

 sheep on the other side. M. Bourrel urges that the incisor teeth of dogs 

 ought to be filed ; thus blunted, they could not readily penetrate the flesh. 



Dr. Delaunay has concluded a long series of experiments on the relative 

 volume of heads. As a rule, he finds that persons possessing the largest 

 heads are generally occupied in scientific pursuits. He has measured the 

 heads of soldiers, officers, doctors, trades-people and workmen, and has ob- 

 tained statistics from hatters to various colleges, and in a sense, furnishers 

 to several classes of society. Dr. Delaunay concludes that engineers have 

 larger heads than military officers; the latter more voluminous than pri- 

 vates, Eeligious persons are distinguished for their small heads ; thus the 

 inmates of St. Sulpice College, where the clergy are trained, are in this 

 respect behind the Normal school, where university lay professors graduate. 

 It is in the scholastic quarter of Paris, that hatters record the largest meas- 

 ureinent of heads. Merchants would seem to come next, and then in order 

 of rotation, tradesmen, the aristocracy, artisans, laborers, and rag pickers. 

 Masons' heads are proverbial for their small volume. Also, the head, it is 

 alleged, grows from intellectual exercise, perhaps as the muscles from work, 

 and it is an observed fact, that peasants who immigrate from rural districts 

 to cities undergo a gradual enlargement of the head. 



The Academy of Sciences has since many years been occupied with the 

 subject of localization of the brain. As many forms of paralysis correspond 

 with lesions in the gray substance of the brain, and since the exact position 

 of such substance can be localized, M. Baurdon recommends the operation of 

 trepanning, thus laying bare the affected substance and treating it as a fatal 

 abscess. He is also of the opyaion that when some brain ailment disappears 

 it is not in consequence of the lesion ceasing to exist, but to the white, re- 

 placing the functions of the gray matter of the brain. 



The Messrs. Tissandier in their recent balloon ascension observed a few 

 curious facts. The balloon rose in the afternoon, the weather being very 

 beautiful ; at the height of 440 yards there was a feeble current of air from 

 east to west ; at double this altitude there was moving in the same direction 



