Notes and Memoranda. 483 



memorial, he states that the drainage effected by railway works has removed these 

 disorders. 



An Oyster Shell Island.— M. Aucapitaine describes an island composed of 

 layers of oyster shells in the Late of Diana, on the east coast of Corsica, and 

 which bears some resemblance to the shell mounds of Saint Michel-en-Lherm in 

 La Vendee. The Corsican island, like these masses, is formed of the shells of 

 species still living. It is between three and four hundred yards in circumference, 

 and the greatest elevation about thirty yards, the mean elevation being rather 

 more than two yards above the sea-level. The fishermen say the Eomans used 

 to deposit there the shells of the oysters, which they salted for exportation, but 

 he does not believe the island had an artificial origin. 



LoawooD AS A Disinfectant.— M. Desmartis describes to the French 

 Academy an ointment made with equal parts of fat and extract of logwood, as 

 removing the nauseous odour of putrefying sores. 



The Guinea Wobm.— Mr. H. J. Carter, F.E.S., finds some confirmation of 

 his idea that the Guinea worm is a monster growth of a worm whose natural 

 habitat is not of the human body, and whose young may be introduced through 

 the sudorific ducts in the skin, from the behaviour of certain Filarida? who make 

 their way into the tissues of fungi. He tells us that free microscopic Filaridse 

 frequent gelatinous algse and large fungi by myriads, and that when examining a 

 large digitiform Xyloria which grows on the decayed trunks of tamarind trees, he 

 saw delicate thread-like bodies which appeared to exhibit animal motion, and 

 which projected from the conceptacles of the plant one from each. Extracting a 

 few with a fine needle, and transferring them to a little water on a slide, he found 

 them to be young Filaridse. The mouths of the conceptacles did not exceed 

 l-1880th of an inch in diameter, which is less than the size of the openings of the 

 human sudorific ducts. These observations were read at the Medical and Physical 

 Society, Bombay, and published in the Annals of Satural History, No. liv. 



Ft/nqous Disease. — The same authority considers that the fungous disease 

 which ravages the bones and soft part of the feet and ankles is occasioned by the 

 entrance through the sudorific ducts of minute spores in an amoeboid state, and 

 which attain a monstrous growth as the black fungus in the human body. 



Mesozoic Liee in Australia. — The Annals of 'Natural History, No. liv., p. 

 486, publishes a letter from Professor Owen to Dr. Francis, stating that Mr. J. S. 

 Poare dredged up a living encrinite from eight fathoms at King George's Sound, 

 Western Australia. Professor Owen adds, "This, in connection with Stutch- 

 bury's discovery of a living Trigonia at Fort Jackson, and other evidences of 

 mesozoic life at the antipodes, noticed in the published descriptions of tne fossil 

 marsupials of British oolites, is an interesting fact. 



Phosphorescence of the Sea. — According to Cosmos, this phenomenon 

 was exhibited with extraordinary splendour at Cherbourg on the 18th of May. 



Carbonic Acid as an Anesthetic.— Dr. Ozonam detailed to the French 

 Academy on the 2nd of June his experiments on this subject. After forty trials 

 with delicate animals, whose sleep he had prolonged for one or two hours at a time 

 without accident, he operated upon a human subject suffering from a deep abscess 

 in the thigh. He began by administering a mixture of three parts of carbonic 

 acid and one of common air contained in a caoutchouc bag, and furnished with a 

 long tube, terminating in an enlarged opening, capable of receiving the mouth and 

 nose. This was applied so loosely that the patient could respire air as well as 

 the gas mixture. In two minutes he was asleep with accelerated respiration and 

 abundant perspiration from the face. This last phenomenon, Dr. Ozanam observes, 

 appears to be the result of a specific action of carbonic aciH, which produces it, if 

 directed upon the skin as a douche, or in a bath. The jratient evinced no con- 

 sciousness when the incision was made, but the inhalation of the gas was sus- 

 pended just before the last cut, which was felt, and the young man awoke. "When 

 the gas is properly administered, consciousness is recovered as soon as the process 

 is suspended, and Dr. Ozonam claims for his method greater safety than belongs 

 to chloroform. M. Flourens spoke very favourably of the new plan. It is quite 



