Notes and Memoranda. 385 



that Mr. Charles Martius found 131 phanerogams on the terminal cone of the 

 Faulhorn, while only 93 have been discovered in the whole archipelago of Spitz- 

 bergen. 



Arsenical Pigments and Health. — M. Pietra Santa has just communicated 

 to the French Academy a paper on the possibility of avoiding injury to health 

 through the employment of the arsenical green known as " Scheele's " and 

 " Schweinfurth's." He states, as the results of six years' experience, that if the 

 operatives wash their hands frequently, use warm baths, and change their occupa- 

 tion each week, they will not suffer from arsenical poisoning as a constitutional 

 disease, and that any local injury will soon yield to the application of powdered 

 calomel and salt water. When these precautions have been neglected in a lamp- 

 shade factory, which he names, serious results have soon appeared. 



Pbolonged Sleep and Abstinence. — In a memoir by M. Blondet, read be- 

 fore the French Academy, there is a description of a lady, 24 yeara of age, who 

 slept for forty days when she was 18, and for fifty days immediately after her mar- 

 riage, when she was 20 ; four years later she went to sleep at Easter, 1862, and did 

 not wake till the following spring in March, 1863, except on one occasion, 

 eight days after the attack, when she took her place at the table, ate, and fell back 

 asleep in her chair. M. Blondet occasionally introduced a little milk or broth by 

 means of a machine. He describes her as a large handsome woman. , He men- 

 tions two other cases in which prolonged sleep terminated in the cure of diseases, 

 delirium (delire generate), and acute gastritis. He objects to the term "catalepsy" 

 as conveying no scientific idea, and divides sleep into three kinds, diurnal, annual, 

 and metamorphic, or of the chrysalis sort. The annual sleep, hybernation, he 

 affirms not to be caused by want of food, or by the temperature alone, as hyber- 

 nating animals will sleep in warm rooms with food beside them. He thinks that 

 it may be a habit transmitted to certain creatures from very distant times, when 

 the phenomenon may have been general and necessary to preserve life during 

 violent winters. 



The Relations between Functions and Oegans. — When one set of physio- 

 logists declare that organs give rise to functions, and another set declare that 

 functions produce organs, the latter do not mean that the functions can exist with- 

 out the organ, but that the organ may be enlarged, diminished, or modified by the 

 manner in which the function is performed. M. C. Sedillot discusses this ques- 

 tion in Comptes Rendus (Nov. 13, 1864), and it is evident that the flexibility of 

 organs may play an important part in modifying species. Amongst the illustra- 

 tions he gives in support of the modifying influence of function, he says, " If a 

 portion of one of the bones of the leg or fore arm be removed, and not replaced 

 by growth, the associated bone enlarges till it attains a bulk equal to that of the 

 two bones whose functions it is to perform. This phenomenon is very evident in 

 dogs ha which the tibia has been removed ; the companion bone, which is almost 

 filiform, and not one-fifth the size of the other, soon acquires equal or greater 

 dimensions." 



Effects oe Elevation on Health. — The Archives des Sciences for October, 

 1864, contains an interesting paper by Dr. Lambard on the " Population of High 

 Places," in which he reviews the writings of Dr. Jourdanet. At a height of 

 2000 metres, or about 6561 feet, the human body has only to support three- 

 quarters of the atmospheric pressure experienced at the sea level. The quantity 

 of oxygen taken in at each inspiration is greatly reduced, and evaporation facili- 

 tated. Debility, palpitation, neuralgia, and stomach disorder are encouraged by 

 such conditions. The difference between the temperature in the sun and in the shade 

 is greater than at lower levels, and at night the refrigeration is rapid and consider- 

 able. From this cause pneumonia is common, and has a tendency to terminate 

 abruptly in stupor and loss of energy. In Mexico yellow fever does not reach a 

 greater elevation than 800 or 850 metres. Intermittent fevers are rare, notwith- 

 standing the presence of extensive lagunes ; as the dry heat of the day and the 

 cold of the night do not favour decomposition. Typhus and typhoid diseases are 

 common in Anuhuac, and the dryness promotes inflammation of the pharynx. 

 Rheumatism of the joints is common, and congestions of vital organs. Bronchial 

 disorders and pneumonia are fatal to children j but pulmonary consumption, though 



