SCIENTIFIC SUMMARY. 
215 
unconsciously indulged in in both experiments shortly after leaving the bath, 
notwithstanding the strong desire to keep awake for the purpose of record- 
ing the rates of pulse and respiration at given periods. 
On Typhoid Fever. — In Sir W. Gull’s lecture on this subject, which we 
should have reported earlier, it is remarked that two hundred and fifty years 
ago one of the kings of England died of ague, but now by improved agri- 
culture and drainage the disease had become rare, and certainly very few die 
j of it. Typhoid fever, he asserts, is as preventible as ague, and two hun- 
dred and fifty years hence deaths from it will be as rare. The disease is 
caused by a virus of nature, which may get into the healthy body, increase 
in it, and destroy it. It is an accidental condition, and not one of the ordi- 
j nary processes of nature. The origin of the disease is somehow or other 
I connected with drainage j it has therefore been called the filth fever, and to 
get rid of the filth is to get rid of the fever. This was illustrated in the 
I case of the Millbank Prison, where typhoid and dysentery were once 
j thoroughly established, but where both almost wholly disappeared when the 
water-supply was changed and efficient drainage provided. In his closing 
I remarks on the treatment of the disease, the lecturer said that no one can 
approach a case of typhoid fever without paying some attention to h3^giene. 
' This he claimed was of the greatest importance, and with it he would prefer 
( to carry anyone through the disease by wines and soups and fresh air, rather 
i than by the use of drugs. 
A Collection of Peruvian Skulls at the Anthropological Society. — This 
I society’s museum has lately been enriched by the presentation of a splendid 
collection of Peruvian skulls of vast age and 130 in number. They were 
' dug out of the old aboriginal burying-grounds of Pasamayo and of Ancon, 
■ 20 and 30 miles north, and from Cerso del Oro about 100 miles south, of 
Callao. Twenty-four of these were taken by the Consul himself from the 
j Huacas of Ancon, and are probably those of Chinchas or perhaps Aymaras. 
The Nutrition of the Lung-tissue in Consumption. — Dr. W. Marcet, E.P.S., 
has contributed a valuable paper on this subject to the “Philosophical 
i Magazine.” Among a great number of conclusions the following especially 
bear on the point above stated : (a) That in phthisis a given weight of mus- 
I cular tissue contains less nutritive material than it does in health, less mature 
; or insoluble tissue, rather more water, and a much higher proportion of 
I chlorine and soda, (b) That, in phthisis, the phosphoric acid and potash 
, effete in muscular tissue are present exactly in the right proportion for the 
I formation of a pyrophosphate, as occurred in healthy flesh. This shows 
; that the process of waste of muscles in phthisis takes place precisely as it 
I did while in the state of health, and confirms the result relative to the com- 
j position of the effete material of muscular tissue, eight analyses of flesh 
yielding phosphoric acid and potash effete in the proportion of a pyrophos- 
phate. (c) That the emaciation in phthisis appears due mainly to the blood 
not being in the proper condition to supply nutritive material to muscular 
tissue. The damp or wet state peculiar to muscles after death from phthisis 
appears to show that the colloid state of flesh in that disease is somewhat 
deficient, (d) That the tubercular or adenoid formation in pulmonary tissue 
actually undergoes nutrition, and is consequently a growth^ the phosphoric 
acid and potash being apparently eliminated, as in the case of flesh, under 
