1813.] 



Transition Rocks of Werner, 



42S 



That granite, the nucleus round which Werner conceives all 

 other rocks were deposited, is in some cases actually of a later 

 date than the transition series, which comprehends strata con- 

 taining shells; and that its suhsequent formation is clearly 

 evinced by the appearances at St. Michael's Mount. 



Hence that the distinction of transition rocks is grounded on 

 false conclusions. 



And, finally, that Werner must make very material alterations 

 on his present system, if he wishes to accommodate it to the 

 phenomena so commonly presented in nature. 



Article III, 



On Vomiting, Being the Account of a Memoir of M. Magendie 

 on Vomiting, read to the Imperial Institute of France on the 

 1st of March, 1813. 



The Class charged M. M. Cuvier, Pinel, Humboldt, and 

 myself^ to give our opinion of a memoir on vomiting by M. 

 Magendie, Doctor of Medicine, read at the meeting of the 25th 

 of January last. 



This memoir treats of a physiological truth which for a cen- 

 tury and a half past has been alternately adopted and rejected, 

 acknowledged and denied, established and forgotten, and which 

 M. Magendie has at last founded on proofs so irrefragable that it 

 is completely established, and must henceforth be considered as 

 a point of doctrine beyond the reach of every objection. 



How is vomiting performed, and what are the means em- 

 ployed by nature for that act, so apt to disturb the health, and 

 in many cases so well adapted to re-establish it? Such is the 

 question which occupied the indefatigable and ingenious author 

 of the memoir of which we have to give an account. He has 

 not considered it with reference to medical practice, convinced 

 that in what way soever it is produced, its necessity, indications, 

 and effects, must continue the same in cases of disease. He lias 

 treated it as a skilful physiologist and judicious experimenter; 

 and if we cannot ascribe to him alone the idea and the entire 

 solution, it is just to say that without him it would still have 

 remained a problem undecided. 



Nobody doubted till towards the middle of the IJth century 

 that vomiting was produced by the simultaneous contraction of 

 the muscular fibres of the stomach, supposed by anatomists to 

 exist in that organ upon no very strong evidence. M, Magendie 

 says, in his memoir, that Chirac appears to have been the first 

 who entertained the contrary opinion, and who advanced that 



