520 
POPULAE SCIENCE REVIEW. 
MEDICAL SCIENCES. 
Action of Sulphuretted Hydrogen on the System. — M. Demarquaj, who has 
lately conducted some experiments to determine the action of sulphuretted 
hydrogen on the body, has discovered that when this gas is injected into the 
cellular tissue of an animal, it rapidly produces death, being absorbed by the 
blood. It is exhaled by the lungs, and may be detected in the expired air by 
means of lead test-papers. When a small dose has been administered, the 
elimination is slow, and inflammation of the lung-tubes follows ; but with a 
large dose the animal is soon destroyed. 
The Croonian Lecture was delivered this session by Dr. Lionel Beale, the 
subject chosen by the lecturer being the relation of the nerves to muscle and 
Other tissues, the Professor’s views reo^ardino; the mode of termination of 
nerve in muscle proving the most interesting part of his discourse. Muscle, 
as our readers are aware, is usually described as being composed of a number 
of ultimate fibres bound together in bundles. Between these fibres are found 
multitudes of blood-vessels and nerves, the former supplying the tissue with 
nutriment, and the latter conveying to it those nervous stimuli which call 
into action its peculiar property — contractility. Each muscular fibre is 
presumed to be composed of a quantity of rectangular particles arranged in 
rows, and enclosed within a delicate transparent tube, which is termed the 
sarcolemma. As we have already mentioned, the nerve-fibres may be easily 
seen (with the assistance of the microscope) travelling between the con- 
stituent fibres of a muscular fasciculus ; but hitherto it has been impossible 
to say in what manner they terminate. This question of termination is an 
extremely interesting one, not only from a histologic point of view, but 
also because it refers to some of the highest problems in physiology. It is 
already known that there are many resemblances between the nervous and 
electric forms of force, and the manner in which the nerves terminate in the 
tissues would, if discovered, afford much greater evidence than that we have 
heretofore possessed, of the distinctness or identity of the two sets of phe- 
nomena — nervous and electrical. In conducting all operations with elec- 
tricity, it is essential that the wires along which the current is conducted 
shall be so arranged that a complete circuit is established ; were it otherwise, 
the phenomena required would not be exhibited. If the nerve-filaments 
do not form complete circuits in the tissues, it is evident that the 
variety of force now known as nervous will operate under different circum- 
stances to those required for electric phenomena ; hence, the analogy hitherto 
supposed would in great measure fall to the ground. The researches of 
Dr. Beale, however, demonstrate in the most conclusive manner that the 
nerves do not terminate in ends properly so called, but form networks of 
extreme minuteness, the inosculations being formed by the finest filaments of 
the tissue. Dr. Beale’s results may be thus summed up : — 
{a.) The ultimate nerve-filaments form net-works, and never terminate in 
ends. 
(6.) They can readily be distinguished from filaments of connective tissue. 
