1865.] Zoology and Animal Physiology, &c. 699 



880 persons killed from 1854 to 1863, only 243 were females, which 

 will be 26-7 per cent. In England the proportion of females killed 

 is only 21 ■ 6 per cent. In many cases, M. Boudin says, when the 

 lightning has fallen upon a group of people of both sexes, it has only 

 killed the males and spared the females. 



In several cases, however, when the electric fluid has fallen upon 

 a flock attended by shepherds, it has only killed the sheep and spared 

 the shepherds. M. Boudin states that there have been many instances 

 of beeches struck with lightning, and that there are at least two 

 examples of individuals struck more than once in the course of their 

 lives ; one man, indeed, was struck three times in as many different 

 parts of his body, and another man was struck twice in his left foot. 

 The statistics prove the danger of standing under trees in a storm. 



M. Boudin also relates two instances in which the corpses of 

 individuals killed by lightning seemed to be charged with electricity 

 like Leyden jars, for in each instance people going to the assistance of 

 the deceased received violent shocks. 



IX. ZOOLOGY AND ANIMAL PHYSIOLOGY, Etc. 



Dr. Richardson has recently communicated to the Royal Society a 

 very remarkable Memoir, on the possibility of restoring the life of 

 warm-blooded animals in certain cases where the respiration, circula- 

 tion, and ordinary manifestations of organic motion are exhausted or 

 have ceased. The object of the inquiry was to discover the best means 

 to be adopted for fanning into active life the animal fire which is ex- 

 piring but is not suspended ; and secondarily to solve the question, 

 whether animal combustion cannot be re-established when it appears 

 to have been extinguished ; and whether so-called vital activity would 

 not be spontaneously manifested upon such re-establishment of animal 

 combustion. The author is led to the conclusion, which he thinks 

 admits of direct demonstration, that artificial respiration, in whatever 

 way performed, is quite useless from the moment when the right side 

 of the heart fails in propelling a current of blood over the pulmonic 

 circuit, and when the auriculo-ventricular valve loses its tension on 

 contraction of the ventricle. Only is artificial respiration useful when 

 the blood from the heart is being still distributed over the capillary 

 surface of the lungs — the process is simply one of fanning an expiring 

 flame, which once expired will not, in spite of any amount of fanning, 

 re-light. The further conclusion to which he is led goes, however, 

 beyond the process of artificial respiration : returning again to the same 

 simile, Dr. Richardson ventures to report that, even when the heart 

 has ceased to supply blood to the pulmonic capillaries, during the 

 period previous to coagulation, the blood may be driven or drawn over 

 the pulmonic circuit, may be oxidized in its course, may reach the left 

 side of the heart, may be distributed over the arteries ; and that, thus 

 distributed, it possesses the power of restoring general muscular irri- 

 tability and the external manifestations of life. Hence he infers that 



- VOL. II. 3 B 



