82 
cula feci, invisé certe mihi crudelitate usus quam tamen utilitas humani 
generis et necessitas perinde excusant.’”’ Dr. Law, as a member of the 
Commission, hardly felt himself justified in entering into a discussion on 
the Report, which would necessarily involve technicalities scarcely suited 
to such a meeting, but would content himself by observing, that its 
chief topics were amongst some of the most interesting of physiology, 
and which had been proposed as subjects for investigation by the British 
Association, viz., ‘‘the sounds and motions of the heart.’’ As Dr. Law had 
been a member of the Commission appointed by the British Association, 
it afforded him great satisfaction to find in the phenomena exhibited in 
M. Groux’ case a confirmation of those results which had been deduced 
from the experiments then made, and had constituted the material of the 
Report. While Dr. Law subscribed to the Report on M. Groux’ case, 
he had no difficulty in understanding why others should not do so. 
Discrepancies in observations when the senses of sight and hearing are 
simultaneously engaged, or even separately employed, seem not confined 
to physiology or medicine: astronomical observations exhibit similar 
discrepancies. Dr. Law felt that the interest evinced by the Academy 
towards the Report, and towards the few observations made upon it, 
would encourage future communications of the same nature. 
Dr. Benson said he wished to make afew remarks in connexion with 
the subject of the Report, of which an abstract had just been read. He 
was not a member of the Committee, but he had been appointed, with 
Professors Jacob and Power, by the Council of the Surgical Society of 
Ireland to examine into the case of M. Groux, and report upon it. 
This Report he and his colleagues had made at a meeting of the Society, 
held in the College of Surgeons, on the 13th of March, and which was 
printed in the ‘‘ Dublin Medical Press” of the 31st March. He (Dr. 
Benson) was very well pleased with the result of his investigations. 
They did not, indeed, bring to light anything very novel, nor establish 
any new facts; but they did what was better—they confirmed the opi- 
nions generally entertained respecting the actions and sounds of the 
heart. The opinions to which he alluded were those published by a 
Committee of the British Association after its first Meeting in Dublin, 
and founded upon experiments then made. He agreed with the authors 
of the Report, just now read, that the large, prominent, pulsating tu- 
mour in the fissure of M. Groux’ sternum is theright auricle. It swells 
out suddenly as the concurrent effect of three causes :—1st, the influx 
of blood from the cay ; 2nd, the reflux of blood from the right ventricle, 
or, at all events, the wave pushed back by the tricuspid valves; and, 
3rd, the distention of the pulmonary artery behind it. He thought it 
very strange that distinguished men in London had differed so much as 
to the name to be given to this tumour,—one calling it the aorta, others 
the right ventricle, —while it seemed most obvious that the aorta could 
be felt (not seen) pulsating higher up, and the ventricle could be felt 
(not seen) pulsating lower down, all in the same fissure. M. Groux 
told him (Dr. Benson) that all the medical men who examined him in 
