386 POPULAE SCIENCE EEVIEW. 
they can easily be restored to their former appearance, by being left for some 
time in a water-bath. The viscera, blood-vessels, muscles, and nerves remain 
perfect, and the latter may be traced to their ultimate e?rtremities. After re- 
storation, the bodies are again liable to desiccation on exposure to air ; but 
they may, a second time (or even oftener), be restored by immersion in water. 
The Electricity of Mineral Waters has been treated of in a paper in the 
Comptes Rendus for February, by M. A. Lainbron. He considers that in all 
sulphur waters there are two strata of electricity. The upper portions of the 
liquid present an excess of positive, and the lower ones of negative electric 
fluid. Consequently, when we take a sulphur bath, the lower regions of the 
body are charged negatively, and the upper positively. The writer considers 
that these statements are proved by experiment, and lays considerable stress 
upon what he is pleased to term the importance of the subject which he 
has taken, up for investigation. 
Terminations of the Nerves. — It may now be nearly regarded as proven 
that the nerve-fibres do not terminate in the parts to which they are dis- 
tributed ; but, after travelling from some particular centre to an extremitjq 
then take a backward course, and finally arrive at the point from which they 
started. Admitting this view, we have then another fact in support of the 
hypothesis that nerve-force, as it is called, is nothing more than electricity 
acting under peculiar conditions. Dr. Beale, although he by no meahs claims 
for this doctrine a universal assent, still conceives it to be at least probable. 
In speaking of the two sets of cells, caudate and rounded, which are con- 
nected with the nervous filaments, he attributes to the latter tlie power 
of originating currents, while the other he fancies is concerned more par- 
ticularly with the distribution of these and of secondary currents induced by 
them, in very many different directions. A current originating in a ganglion 
cell would possibly give rise to several induced currents as it traversed a 
caudate nerve-cell. It seems probable that nerve currents emanating from 
the round ganglion-cells, may be constantly traversing innumerable circuits 
in every part of the nervous system, and that nervous actions are due to a 
disturbance, perhaps a variation in the intensity of the currents, which must 
immediately result from the slightest change occurring in any part of the 
nerve-fibre, as well as from any physical or chemical alteration taking place 
in the nerve-centres, or in any of the peripheral nervous organs. — Vide 
The Quarterly Journal of Microscopical Science, No. XVII. 
The Oral Mucus in Typhoid Fevers. — M. A. Netter has drawn attention 
to some important observations which he has made in regard to the mouths 
of patients suffering from typhoid fevers. It appears, from this savant's 
investigation, that in fevers of a zymotic kind the interior of the mouth 
is subject to peculiar alterations, which have not received the consideration 
they deserve. A peculiar blackish foetid matter is secreted by the mucous 
membrane, and forms a suitable nidus for numerous parasites. The air 
v/hich the patient inhales becomes impure in passing over the unhealthy 
membrane, and being in this condition introduced into the lungs, it slowly 
poisons the system. Such being the case, M. Netter suggests the employ- 
ment of acid gargles, which, according to the results of his experience, are 
always attended with favourable consequences. The gargles should be con- 
stantly repeated. — Vide Comptes Rendus, December, 1864. 
