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POPULAR SCIENCE REVIEW. 
ever, we think his theories are hardly as well supported as they ought to 
be. For example, we do not see why — admitting the connective-tissue 
corpuscle to be a non-nervous tissue — it is necessary to assume that the 
insoluble material left represents connective-tissue. Such a conclusion 
would imply, either that connective-tissue was formed nervous matter, or 
that it had the power of being developed in two distinct ways. 
The Development of Fibrine. — The production of the material known 
as fibrine is due to that gradual death of minute particles of the living 
matter, of the white and small colourless corpuscles, which takes place 
under ordinary circumstances when blood escapes from the vessels of the 
living body. The blood does not die the very instant it leaves the 
vessels, and, as is well known, it may be caused to retain its vitality much 
longer under some conditions than others. It is even probable that these 
particles of living matter may absorb nutrient matter, and increase for 
some time after the blood has left the vessel, so that it is possible, not only 
that some of the fibrine, but that the living matter from which it resulted, 
may have been produced after the blood was removed from the organism. 
A white corpuscle will live and move for hours after the blood has been 
drawn from the body. Such is the ingenious theory which Dr. Beale 
advances to explain the origin of fibrine, and certes it must be said that 
it is a most rational one. — Vide The Quarterly Journal of Microscopical 
Science , April, 1864. 
Epilepsy accompanied by Diabetes. — In the last number of the Archives 
of Medicine will be found a report of a very instructive and singular 
case of this kind which occurred in the practice of Dr. B. Sequard. 
Mr. Lockhart Clarke, who examined the condition of the spinal and 
cerebral organs, reports that the “point of the calamus scriptorius was 
composed entirely of a column of densely-crowded oil globules ; and 
a similar degeneration, though in a less degree, extended to the corre- 
sponding parts, a little below as well as a little above, where it partly 
affected the nuclei of the pneumogastric nerves.” 
Nature of Skin Parasites.— A little pamphlet has recently been pub- 
lished in which Dr. Tilbury Fox comments severely upon the hypotheses 
of Mr. Erasmus Wilson. The latter gentleman has broached the idea 
that the so-called plant parasites of the human skin are not vegetable 
growths at all, but are merely the ordinary epidermoid tissue which has 
undergone some species of metamorphosis. This doctrine is opposed, and 
we think justly, by the former, who advances many arguments in favour 
of the vegetal character of the organisms in question, and shows — 1st. That 
we are able to distinguish the presence of cellulose externally, and inter- 
nally the primordial utricle coloured by iodine ; also that the tubed 
mycelial form and fructification are present, and thus exhibit truly vegetal 
features. 2nd. That ether, chloroform, and spirit of wine, which render 
epithelial tissues transparent (?) and dissolve fatty substances, do not 
affect the parasitic structures. 3rd. When the parasitic structure is 
removed from the skin, “ put up,” and kept in a warm place, it will 
be observed to grow. The nuclear will develop into the sporular form, 
and the sporules will join together and increase in size, bud, or produce 
mycelium. These phenomena have been observed by Dr. Fox in a specimen 
of tricophyton which had been removed from diseased hair. Dr. Fox’s 
