196 The American Naturalist. *[February, 
stroyed wıthout seriously damaging the upper part of the brain. Neither 
etherizatıon nor trephining and pricking the dura mater caused long- 
lasting rise of temperature. Lesions of the white matter alone seemed 
incompetent to produce a rise of temperature. Twenty-three lesions 
of the corpora striata alone were followed in all except two cases by a 
rise averaging fifty-eight hours in duration, and equaling from 3° to 
5.2° F. Nine lesions of the optic thalami alone caused a rise òf 2°+ 
to 3°+, and averaging forty-two hours in duration. The nerve fibres 
that modify the temperature apparently do not cross in the rabbit, this 
animal thus differing from man. 
Function of Mammalian Sympathetic Ganglia. — In 1887 
Dr. W. Hale White published 8 the results of microscopic examinations 
of the superior cervical ganglia of man and numerous lower mammals, 
which tended to show that this ganglion gradually degenerates the 
higher one goes in the animal scale. e has since made further ob- 
servations on this and other sympathetic ganglia? As regards the 
superior cervical ganglion, in adult man the nerve cells as a rule were 
pigmented, granular, shrunken, non-nucleated, and degenerate in 
appearance, the degeneration being greatest in old persons; in chil- 
dren and foetuses, the cells were like normal. nerve cells; in twenty- 
one species of lower mammals, the cells were also like normal nerve 
cells, except in one of the Catarrhine apes, where slight evidences of 
egeneration existed. As regards the semilunar ganglia, thirty-three 
human specimens, three taken tis children, showed normal nerve 
cells, while twenty-four adult ; of eighteen 
lower mammals, all possessed cells of the normal type. In human 
thoracic ganglia, a few nerve cells possessed slight granularity and 
pigmentation, and this was more marked in aged individuals. The 
author draws the following conclusions : 
“ Firstly : That in lower mammals and young human beings the col- 
lateral ganglia (if we may judge from the superior cervical and semi- 
lunar) are functionally active, but that in monkeys there are evidences 
of the commencing loss of their function, which has completely dis- 
appeared in the human adult. Secondly: That in man the function 
of the lateral ganglia is maintained well into adult life, and only 
begins to disappear in old age.” 

8 Journal of Physiology, Vol. VIIL., p. 66. 
9 Journal of Physiology, Vol. X., 1889, p. 341 

