SCIIiJNTII’IC SUMMARY. 
387 
Consanguineous Marriages. — M. A. Voisin has put forward some inter- 
esting facts tending to prove that marriages of consanguinity are not pro- 
ductive of the evil consequences usually attributed to them. He carried on 
his inquiries in the town of Batz, in the Loire-Inferieure. Having selected 
forty-six. cases of consanguineous marriage, he examined the husbands, 
wives, and children in regard to their physical and intellectual develojoment, 
and made inquiries concerning the families examined and their ancestors, 
through the assistance of the mayor, pastor, and oldest inhabitants. Com- 
bining the statistics thus collected, he finds that intermarriages do not bring 
about disease, idiocy, or malformation. The town of Batz is situated upon 
a peninsula, bounded on one side by the seashore, and on the other by salt 
marshes. The air is pure, and the most frequent winds are those from the 
north, north-east, and north-west. The number of inhabitants is about 3,300. 
They have little communication with other parts of the country, and their 
occupation is almost entirely confined to the preparation of salt. They are 
very intelligent, almost all the adults being able to read, and the morality is 
of the highest stamp. Theft or murder has not occurred within the memory 
of the oldest inhabitant. The mothers nurse their children till they are 
fifteen months old, and the general food of the population is of the vegetable 
class. There are at present, in Batz, forty-six couples who are cousins — five 
who are second cousins, thirty-one who are third cousins, and ten who are 
fourth cousins. From the five unions of second cousins there have been 
produced twenty-three children, none of whom have presented any congenital 
deformity. The thirty-one marriages of third cousins have produced a 
hundred and twenty children, all healthy ; and the marriages of fourth 
cousins have given rise to twenty-nine children, all of whom, with the excep- 
tion of a few attacked by ague, were strong and healthy at the time of 
examination. The writer contends that such facts as the foregoing prove 
that consanguineous marriages by no means lead to the degeneration of a 
race. — Vide Gomptes Bendus, January 16th. 
Spores of Acliorion in the Air.— The experiments of M. Bazin demonstrate 
that the atmosphere surrounding persons afiected with favus contains the 
spores of Achorion Schoenheinii. He selected a patient, aged sixteen, who 
had sufiered from favus for seven years, affecting the whole of the hairy scalp, 
and placed him under such circumstances, that a current of air passing over his 
head was directed against two jars filled with ice, and placed in a basin at a 
distance of fifty centimetres. By making the patient rub his head and hair, 
the current of air carried to a distance particles of favus crust, visible to the 
naked eye, in which the microscope discovered the existence of the achorion. 
But as the current of air passed over the vessels of ice, it deposited its 
moisture, and this running down the sides of the basin, was collected in the 
basin below. In the fluid a great number of isolated spores were found. 
The experiment was repeated several times, and on each occasion thirty or 
more spores were demonstrated in a single drop of the liquid. The experi- 
menter concludes that the spores may be carried by atmospheric air, and that 
v/hat was formerly only an hypothesis is now a demonstrated fact. — ^Vide 
Gazette Medicate, and Medico-Chirurgical Beview, No. LXIX. 
The Nerves, of the Intestines. — In “ Virchow’s Archives ” (1864, p. 457), 
Auerbach gives the results of his examination of the histology of the intes- 
YOL. lY. NO. XV. 2 D 
