Notes and Memoranda. 67 



morning, while smoking upon an empty stomach, he was seized with frightful 

 pains in the region of the heart with constriction of the chest. He could neither 

 walk nor speak, his pulse became insensible, his hands cold. The attack lasted 

 half an hour. By M. Beau's advice he left off smoking, promising to let him 

 know if the disorder returned, which does not appear to have been the case. Iu 

 a fourth instance a young Spaniard continually smoked cigarettes. His appetite 

 vanished and his digestion became difficult. One evening, while smoking, he felt 

 a sudden and violent pain in the chest, as if he had been squeezed in a vice, and 

 his pulse became insensible. The attack lasted ten minutes, and being frightened 

 he consented to forego smoking, and suffered no more. In a fifth case a physician 

 was subject, while a smoker, to constriction of the thorax and neuralgic pains. In a 

 sixth case a merchant suffered similar attacks, but stuck to his cigar, and his disease. 

 In a seventh a hearty man of seventy-five smoked desperately to get rid of his 

 cares, and had three attacks of angina, the last of which killed him. An eighth 

 illustration was afforded by a smoking diplomatist who died suddenly under similar 

 influence. M. Beau observes that M. Bernard produced in various animals a dis- 

 order resembling angina pectoris, by introducing nicotine into the thorax. He 

 adds, that for tobacco-smoking to produce this disease the practice must be in 

 excess, the individual endowed with a peculiar susceptibility, and likewise suffer 

 from some debilitating circumstance, such as grief, fatigue, or indigestion. Then 

 he considers that the system cannot expel the matter absorbed from the tobacco, 

 and nicotine can accumulate sufficiently to exert a poisonous action on the heart. 



The Ota of Entomostraca. — Dr. Baird described in former numbers of the 

 Annals of Natural History some new species of entomostraca obtained from mud 

 brought in a dry state from the neighbourhood of Jerusalem, and which he placed 

 in pure water, and allowed to stand during the spring and summer. He obtained 

 six species, and the individuals of two or three species increased rapidly as the 

 weather became warmer. He now adverts to the extraordinary way in which the 

 ova of these creatures can resist continued drought, and mentions his success in 

 rearing specimens from dry mud brought from the neighbourhood of Port Eliza- 

 beth, Cape Colony : they afforded several new species. 



New Group of Parasitic Crustacea. — Dr. Fritz Muller describes parasites 

 of crabs, to which he gives the name Mhizoeephala (root-headed). He says : "The 

 head of these apparent worms, which is inserted into the body of the host, emits 

 roots like those of plants — hollow tubes, which, being much ramified, cling round 

 its intestines, and their brood holds a middle place between that of the Lernese 

 and the Cirrepedes." The parasite of the Porcellana he calls Lernaodiscus Por- 

 cellance, and that of the Hermit Crab, Sacculina purpurea. Further details will 

 be found in WiegmanrCs Archiv, 1S62, or Annals Nat. Hist, for June. 



Nervous System of Poltzoa,— The Bulletin Universel (No. liv. p. 179) 

 gives the following account, taken from the Archiv fur NalurgescMchte (1860, p. 

 312), of the " Colonial Nervous System," as Dr. Fritz Muller calls it, of the 

 Polyzoa. "Among those animals which live united in an intimate family or 

 colonial life, such as the bryozoa or polyzoa, we often witness movements either 

 of individuals or of the entire family, and which are evidently voluntary, but 

 resulting less from the volition of individuals than from an impulse of an superior 

 order, appearing to emanate from the entire family. Dr. Fritz Muller, at Des- 

 terro, has observed among the Pedicellina, that when individuals have been 

 violently torn away, their peduncles remain adherent to the family, and continue 

 their movements through whole days. In another species he noticed energetic 

 movements of peduncles only bearing individuals in the condition of buds. Con- 

 sidering the relatively high organization of the polyzoa, he was led to believe 

 that, in addition to an individual nervous system, they also possessed a colonial 

 one belonging to the whole family, and presiding over its movements. The dis- 

 covery in the sea of Santa Catharina of an exceedingly transparent Serialiaria, 

 has enabled him to confirm this view. These polyzoa form trichotomuusly rami- 

 fied colonies, having the branches laden with individuals. These branches are 

 permeated by a nervous trunk, which swells out at the origin of each branch into 

 a basal ganglion. This nervous trunk is in intimate relation with a nervous plexus 

 which sends branches to a basal ganglion of each individual, and which conse- 



