744: Meeting of the British Association. [Oct., 



the good diet of gaols really fed the prison population, and that 

 therefore in them the lowest diet-scale should be used which would 

 not necessarily engender permanent injury to the constitution. 



The passage of Entozoa into the human body through eating 

 impure food was discussed by Dr. Cobbold, who stated that beef 

 infested by tape-worm larvas was more frequently the source of that 

 parasite than pork, whilst Dr. Fleming pointed out that the great 

 prevalence of tape-worm in Birmingham was due to the consumption 

 of measly pork. 



Various points in the anatomy and physiology of the brain were 

 treated of in these Sections. Dr. W. Dickenson read an elaborate 

 paper " On the Functions of the Cerebellum," which was based partly 

 on experiments on the lower animals, and partly on pathological 

 observations. The general conclusion arrived at was, that the 

 function of the cerebellum is to supply the voluntary muscles of 

 the trunk and limbs with self-regulating motive power. Dr. Crisp, 

 from a comparison of the weight of the brain in proportion to the 

 weight of the body, in a number of animals which he had selected, 

 came to the conclusion that the relative weight of the brain in propor- 

 tion to the body was an indication of intelligence, for no animal with 

 a relatively small brain possessed a great amount of intelligence. A 

 description of the external form of the brain of the Orang was also 

 given by the same gentleman. A discussion, "On Phrenology as an 

 important Department of Ethnology," was opened up by a paper read 

 by Dr. Prideaux, without however eliciting any new facts. Papers in 

 other departments of human and comparative anatomy were also read. 

 Dr. Humphry gave an account of the skeleton of a woman, aged 

 104, who had died from accumulation in the bronchial tubes. The 

 cartilages of the ribs were as soft as in early life : the walls of the 

 skull were unusually thick, and the skull weighed 27^ ounces, or 

 6 ounces more than the average. The thigh bone, on the other hand, 

 was singularly light, and weighed only 5 ounces. Dr. Eolleston 

 related the results of his observations on the body of a man supposed 

 to be 106 years old. The skull in his case was so thin and soft, that 

 it could be cut with a knife. Dr. Humphry also expounded his views 

 on the homologies of the lower jaw and the bones connecting it with 

 the skull in the Ovipara. He maintained that the several pieces of 

 the oviparous jaw are represented by the articular and other parts 

 of the mammalian jaw, and that the quadrate and quadratojugal bones 

 are represented by the glenoid and zygomatic parts of the temporal of 

 mammals. Dr. Eolleston described certain points in the anatomy of 

 a fish, and a crustacean from the Mammoth Cave, Kentucky. He 

 showed that the former possessed no abdominal fins, that the latter 

 nearly resembled our own cray fish, only that it was more minute, 

 and though it had been described as blind, yet a careful examination 

 showed it to possess eyes, though these contained no black pigment, 

 and had no facets at the corners. The same gentleman also described 

 various features in the anatomy of Lumbricus ferrestris, more 

 especially in connection with the variability in the number of the 

 rings and the arrangement of the muscular system and salivary 



