1124 General Notes. [November, | 
patient the area of suggestion had a higher temperature than the 
corresponding area of the other leg. It is concluded that by 
mere suggestion to a hypnotized person there may be produced 
in him vaso-motor dilatation over any area of the skin chosen at 
will.— Comptes Rendus, T. ct, p. 228. 
Kocn’s CHoLerA BacıLLUs.—M. Pouchet reports the interest- 
ing fact that he has. extracted from the broth used as culture- 
medium for Koch’s cholera-bacillus an alkaloid which appears to 
have all the external characters (odor, chemical instability, toxic 
effect upon animals) of a substance which can be isolated from | 
choleraic dejections.—Comptes Rendus, T. ci, p. 510. 
HEAT CENTER IN THE BRAIN.—A few years since Dr. H. C. 
Wood, of Philadelphia, published an extended account of re- 
searches, in which experimental support was given to the hypoth- 
esis that certain areas in the cerebral cortex act as nerve centers 
for the regulation of the production of animal heat. Two Ger- 
man students have quite recently partly confirmed these observa- 
tions after a much less troublesome method than that employed 
by Wood. The operation is performed upon guinea-pig, rabbit 
or dog, and consists in passing a needle through the skull at the 
place of union of the sagittal and coronal sutures, some millime- 
ters to the right or left of the longitudinal sinus. The needle is 
pushed in a perpendicular direction as far as the base of the 
skull and is then withdrawn. Succeeding this treatment there is 
an immediate rise of temperature throughout the body to the 
extent of several degrees. At the same time the frequency of 
respiration is slightly increased and there is diminution in the 
amount of chlorides in the urine, but the animal remains well 
and in two or three days the phenomena disappear. The opera- 
tion may then be repeated with like results upon the same animal. 
- It is not decided whether the effects described are due to the tem- 
porary stimulation of a heat-production center or to the paralysis 
of a heat-inhibitory center in the part of the brain which is punc- 
tured— Arch. f. Anat. a. Phys., 1885, p. 166. 
