SCIENTIFIC SUMMARY. 
325 
Atheroma in the Arteries. — Dr. Moxon has been making some recent 
researches on this subject, which are of importance. He shows the con- 
nexion between inflammation of the arterial tunics, atheroma, and .aneurism, 
and he dwells upon, and accounts for, the relatively greater frequency of 
the latter affection among soldiers. Dr. Moxon holds (1) that what is 
called atheroma of arteries is sub-inflammation of various degrees, of which 
the lower degrees end in fatty degeneration of the coats, along with the 
inflammatory products; and (2) that the determining cause of this change 
is mechanical strain, a general altered nutrition — such as obtains in gout, 
syphilis, &c. — being regarded in the light of a predisposing cause. — Vide 
Lancet , June 8. 
Chemical Composition of Pus. — The a British Medical Journal” states, 
in a recent number (May 28, 1872), that Hoppe-Seyler has obtained results 
which are interesting in reference to the question of the origin of the pus- 
corpuscles and their identity with the colourless and lymph corpuscles. He 
introduced fresh crystalline lenses of the ox into the abdominal cavity of 
dogs, and analysed them after a period varying from one to fourteen days. 
As was expected, the lenses became infiltrated with lymph-corpuscles. 
Glycogen was found in greatest abundance at the eighth day, at which 
period they contained the greatest number of contractile corpuscles. The 
glycogen is due to these corpuscles. If the lenses were not plunged imme- 
diately into boiling water, but allowed to stand for some time, no glycogen 
was found, but in its place sugar. In the pus of congestion-abscesses, no 
glycogen occurred. The occurrence of glycogen, therefore, may be taken 
as a means of distinguishing lymph from pus-corpuscles. When glycogen 
is found in abscesses, it will be found to coexist with the presence of 
numerous contractile corpuscles. Lymph-corpuscles, therefore, by their 
transformation into rigid pus-corpuscles, become deprived of their glycogen. 
Animal Starch. — The “ British Medical Journal” in one of its May 
numbers, gives an account of M. Dareste’s researches on this point. It says 
he has observed granules which present the optical characters of starch in the 
hen’s egg, both when newly laid and during the process of incubation. 
The granules in the new-laid egg give a blue with iodine ; while those 
observed during incubation sometimes give a blue, but often give a red. 
The granules appear and disappear several times. The formation of the 
area pellucida is partly due to the disappearance of the third series of 
granules. The fourth series form the glycogen in the liver. He attributes’ 
the disappearance - of starch to its conversion into grape-sugar, and its 
reappearance to the change of grape-sugar back to starch. 
Action of Alcohol on the Body. — This subject is yet far from being 
exhausted. Dr. Subbotin gives in the 11 Zeitschrift fur Biologie ” (Band 
vii., Heft 4), also “ Lancet,” June 8, 1872, the details of a considerable 
series of experiments he has recently performed on rabbits. The mode of 
detection of the alcohol he employed was its acetification by chromic acid, 
or rather by bichromate of potash and sulphuric acid, the quantity being 
determined by the subsequent estimation of the distilled acetic acid by 
means of soda solution. The respiration experiments were conducted in an 
apparatus lent to him by Voit, and constructed on the plan of the large 
apparatus of Pettenkofer and Voit. Alcohol of the strength of 29 per 
