Notes and Memoranda. 225 



NOTES AND MEMORANDA. 



Feesh Experiments on Bacteriums and Disease. — M. Davaine has com- 

 municated to the French Academy another series of experiments on the propaga- 

 tion of disease by inoculating animals with blood containing the bacteriums 

 which he affirms to be always present in spleen disease (Sang de rate). The 

 bacteriums causing the disease he proposes to call bacterides, and so far from their 

 being identical with bodies of somewhat similar appearance, which act as ferments 

 of putrefaction, he finds his bacterides perish when the blood putrefies. He 

 propagated the disease by causing animals to eat portions of the liver, or other 

 viscus removed from creatures affected with the Sang de rate. Portions of putrid 

 liver from healthy animals did not, when swallowed by others, produce anything 

 like the mortality occasioned by pieces of non-putrid liver containing the bac- 

 terides. Females with young did not communicate the disease to their foetal 

 offspring. 



The Spectrum of Comet II, 1864. — Professor Donati, of Florence, publishes 

 in Astron. Nach. a sketch of the spectrum afforded by this comet, and he 

 remarks that it resembles that produced by metals, the black bands being broader 

 than the luminous. 



Supposed Fifth Satellite oe Jupiter. — M. Camille Flammarion, writing 

 in Cosmos, observes that M. de Grasparis, of Naples, saw on the 22nd July, at 

 7.59 p.m., a black well-defined point on the planet's disk. In a quarter of an 

 hour this black point, moving in the direction of the planet's rotation, disappeared, 

 passing from the margin. M. de Gasparis asks if this is the same body that has 

 been seen by Messrs. Long and Baxendell. M. Flammarion says it could not 

 have been a little planet in conjunction with Jupiter, for in that case its motion 

 would have been in an opposite direction, and it was not one of the four known 

 satellites, as they were all visible. Could it, he asks, have been a fifth small 

 satellite ? 



Seeing- Yenus near the Sun. — Mr. Dawes has an interesting letter in the 

 Astronomical Register on this subject. He states that he could observe this 

 planet within one minute of an arc of the sun's edge by employing a diaphragm, 

 such as is used in his solar eye-piece. He recommends as a substitute for this 

 diaphragm, a highly glazed address card with a needle-hole burnt through it. In 

 such observations the planet should be viewed when a little way off the sun, with 

 the lightest screen that enables her to be distinctly seen through the diaphragm, 

 and with such a screen she may be followed nearly up to the sun's edge. 



The Alkaloids of Opium. — M. Claude Bernard states, in Comptes Rendus, 

 that out of the six proximate principles found in opium, only three, morphine, 

 narceine, and codeine, produce sleep. Narcotine, papaverine, and thebaine, have 

 no soporific properties. Morphine produces the most profound sleep. Codeine 

 leaves the nervous system excitable, and when the animal awakes up from its 

 action it is in a natural state, not frightened and. scared as by morphine. Nar- 

 ceine produces sleep in smaller doses than codiene, and the sleep is sounder, but 

 not so leaden as when morphine is employed.. There is also, an absence of excita- 

 bility by noises which is noticeable in morphine sleep, and still more so 

 in that of codeine. The awakening is natural. M. C. Bernard recognizes three 

 properties in these alkaloids — soporific, convulsing and exciting, and poisonous. In 

 soporific power narceine stands first, then morphine, then codeine. The con- 

 vulsive series runs,— 1, thebaine, 2, papaverine, 3, narcotine, 4, codeine, 5, mor- 

 phine, 6, narceine. The poisoning properties are shown in the order, thebaine, 

 codeine, papaverine, narceine, morphine, narcotine. 



Poisoning from Contact with Tobacco. — M. Namias communicates to the 

 French Academy the case of a smuggler who suffered under strong symptoms of 

 tobacco poisoning, through hiding under his clothes, and all over his body, in con- 

 tact with his skin, a quantity of the leaves of that plant. 



Respiratory Nerves of Insects. — M. E. Bandelot has communicated to 

 the French Academy the results of his experiments. M. Faivre had asserted 

 that amongst insects of the Dyticus sort, the metathoracic ganglion excites and 



