194 Proceedings of Royal Society of Edinburgh. [sess. 
to be blue, the hautboy yellow, and the cornet green. Again, it 
is well known that if an organ of sense be stimulated with a feeble 
stimulus, and if another organ of sense be simultaneously stimu- 
lated, the intensity of the sensation in the first organ is increased. 
Thus Urbantschitsch* found that sounding a tuning fork may 
cause a colour, scarcely perceptible at a distance, to be seen more 
vividly. Smells, tastes, touches may influence sounds; a loud 
sound may appear less loud when the eyes are closed ; sight excites 
the acuteness of the sense of taste ; smell affects sounds ; and 
tastes influence colours. A brilliant illumination of the skin 
increases sensitiveness to temperature, and a stimulus of heat or 
cold on one area of skin may affect the tactile sensibility of the 
other. By electrically irritating the skin with irritations that are 
not disagreeable but pleasurable, with irritations that come in 
proper order, duration, time, and rhythm, may we not send nervous 
impulses to the cerebral centres of the skin which may radiate to 
those of the ear and thus excite processes resulting in something 
like the consciousness of sound and music ? Possibly, also, in those 
who once listened to music and have become deaf, electrical 
stimulations of the skin may awaken a kind of cerebral music, long 
forgotten, but still capable of giving pleasure. 
Demonstration of an improved Phonograph Recorder, and 
Remarks on the Curves thereby obtained. 
Since my last communication on this subject to the Society, in 
February, my attention has been directed to perfecting a mechanism 
for obtaining a record of the vibrations imprinted on the wax 
cylinder of the phonograph, and I wish to acknowledge the great 
assistance derived from the ingenuity and mechanical skill of Mr 
Reid and Mr Kean, of the well-known firm in Glasgow known by 
the name of “ James White.” The instrument now before you, 
which I shall call a phonograph recorder, traces out, on a large 
scale, the curves of the indentations on the wax cylinder corre- 
sponding to each vibration of sound, and it does so in a way that 
seems to be highly satisfactory. It is now an instrument that can 
be used by other workers in this difficult department of research, and 
I hope that some of the younger physiologists and physicists will 
* Pfluger's Arcliiv., xliii. 3-4, 1888. 
