See 
NOTES. 445 
EconomicaL Vaturt or Rapnripes.—Mr. F. C. S. Roper sug- 
gested to the Eastbourne Nat. Hist. Soc. the value of raphides as 
tests of the genuineness of certain medicinal substances obtained 
from plants containing them. Though not new, this method of 
detecting adulterations or falsifications is capable of a greatly in- 
creased usefulness. 
PatHoLtocy or Marignant Tumors.—Dr. W. B. Neftel, in a con- 
tribution to the Archives of Scientific and Practical Medicine, ad- 
vocates the doctrine that cancer is primarily a purely local disease, 
due to mechanical or chemical irritation. Thus we notoriously 
find it usually originating in localities most constantly subject to 
such causes. Afterwards it becomes generalized by means of the 
lymphatics and blood vessels, and affects other and distant organs ; 
and the unsuspected promptness with which this takes place occa- 
sions the frequent failure of local curative treatment. The exis- 
tence of a hereditary disposition to malignant tumors, not in the 
congenital acquisition of morbid germs, but in the inheritance of 
a faulty structure or arrangement of tissues or organs, which thus 
offer less resistance to the causes of disease, is not denied, but 
is believed to have been greatly exaggerated. 
VITALITY FROM Germs.—As a reaction from the always fascinat- 
ing doctrine that organic germs of various kinds, when introduced 
into the system of larger animals, have a tendency to cause disease 
and destruction, it has been recently surmised, without attempt at 
proof, that such germs may actually impart and increase vitality. 
- Ovrruary.—Mr. James How, a well known philosophical instru- 
ment maker of London, formerly with George Knight and Son, of 
London, and lately successor to them, died suddenly, Dec. 8, 1872. 
Mr. How will be remembered for his skill in the use of the micro- 
Scope, but especially for his prominence among those who took 
the lead in introducing students’ microscopes of good quality and 
cheap price. 
NOTES. 
THE meeting of the American Association at Portland next 
month bids fair to be one of the largest held for several years, 
and we understand that quite a number of titles of papers to be 
