SCIENTIFIC SUMMARY. 
323 
balance. Dr. Wedl, tbe author of the article, says: — “These corpuscles 
■will, at the next meeting of the Medical Society, be solemnly buried in Dr. 
Strieker’s museum. The sympathy of the profession is requested under 
these painful circumstances, and the Society will doubtless institute special 
masses for the repose of the departed. It is very lucky that the members 
did not, in their hurry, have medals struck for the discovery ; and there is 
time left to send counter-orders to Paris and London, to stop enthusiastic 
researches which might bring some blame on the Vienna Medical Society. 
The latter may derive from this mishap the lesson to beware of allowing 
itself to be made a trumpet to ephemeral discoveries.” The “Lancet,” 
however, finds it difficult to believe — and the “ Microscopical Journal n quite 
coincides with it — that observers like Strieker and Hebra would have been 
carried away by imperfect experiments. It is clearly stated that different 
kinds of blood were placed under Dr. LostorfePs microscope (he not knowing 
whence the blood came), and he constantly recognised his peculiar cor- 
puscles in blood coming from patients affected with syphilis. 
Colourless Bile . — In the “ Comptes Rendus,” March 18, M. E.' Ritter quotes 
the results of a series of analyses made by him on colourless bile, taken from 
the gall-bladders of men and animals submitted to autopsy. As an instance 
of the composition of such bile (as yet hardly ever analysed, since the 
colourless fluid has been taken to be mucus) we mention here the following, 
in 1,000 parts: — "Water, 923-5; salts, 12-4; fat and cholesterine, 6-8; 
organic matter, 2'T ; salts of the bile acids, 5 5-2. It appears that colourless 
bile and fatty degeneration of the liver are somehow connected together. 
Ancient Egyptian Perfume — Dr. Personne states in the “ Journal de Phar- 
macie,” March, that he accidentally obtained a small piece of a chocolate- 
brown substance, which originally was apparently a paste, but is now hard. 
On further examination it was found to consist of a lime-soap, mixed with 
myrrh, olibanum, benzoin, and probably some essential oil. Dr. Personne 
states that at the present day there is sold in Egypt as a perfume a substance 
of similar composition, and locally known as Bouh Kourre-bare, which 
means perfume from the Arabian frontier. 
A Mechanical Means of Lowering the Temperature, which is peculiar, is 
described in a late number of Pfluger’s “ Archiv,” by Herr Manassein. He 
states that, if rabbits, seated at ease in a box, were swung in a transverse 
direction to their length, and with a rapidity of twenty-eight to thirty 
double swings, at a pendent length of 117 ccm., that the temperature taken 
in the rectum after the- swinging- was, by 0-3° to 1.2° C., in the mean by 
0-66°, lower than before. The depression of temperature continued from a 
half to two hours, and was most decided after fifteen minutes of swinging ; a 
longer swinging did not increase the effect.. The maximum of the depres- 
sion of temperature occurred, at first, some time (about thirty minutes) 
after the cessation of the swinging. The last-named circumstance, as well 
as that the wrapping of the animals in cotton-batting in no wise hindered 
the effects, and, on the other hand, that a more rapid swinging appeared 
less effective, prove that the current of air which is produced by the swing- 
ing is not the cause. Swinging in the longitudinal diameter made the 
animal more afraid and more restless ; it had, however, the same influence 
upon the temperature. The effects of the swinging on rabbits were greater 
