i88o.] 
Notes. 
539 
Where death has followed, the blood has become disorganised 
the same as from septicaemia. (Can the poisonous principle be 
cantharidine ? In America this question would admit of an easy 
answer. 
It has been pointed out that the use of palls and mourners’ 
cloaks at funerals furnishes a very efficient medium for the spread 
of infectious diseases, and their use has on that account been 
formally abolished among the Jewish community. 
A writer in “ Baily’s Magazine ” makes some very curious 
statements concerning the physiological aCtion of different alco- 
holic liquids, if taken in excess. Good wines and malt liquors 
cause a man to fall on his side ; whiskey produces a fall on the 
face ; and cider and perry throws the subject on his back ! To 
decide this question by experiment would, we suppose, be con- 
sidered vivisection. 
Abstinence from pork is no safeguard against trichinosis. Two 
French soldiers have lately died of this disease at Thionville, in 
consequence of having partaken of the flesh of geese. Trichinae 
have also been detected by Dr. Clendenin in a pike caught near 
Ostend. 
If the future career of the Manchester University bears any 
relation to the class of persons who figured at its formal inaugur- 
ation, Science will occupy but a very subordinate position. 
According to Dr. Vincenzo Peset y Cervera the crystals of 
haemoglobulin obtained from the blood of different animals have 
forms so distinCt and characteristic that the origin of a sample 
of blood may thus be determined. All that is required is to 
mix the blood with a little bile, when crystals not exceeding 
0*003 metre in size are formed in the mass. The shapes of the 
crystals are said to be as follows : — Man, right rectangular 
prisms ; horse, cubes ; ox, rhombohedrons ; sheep, rhombohe- 
dral tables ; dog, rectangular prisms ; rabbit, tetrahedrons ; 
squirrel, hexagonal tables ; mouse, octahedrons ; &c. 
[If these observations are confirmed they may serve for the 
solution of a most important question raised by Dr. Lionel 
Beale. If the theory of Evolution is true, the crystals obtained 
from animals which are nearly related should be either identical 
or such as are in form easily derived from each other. Should 
the haemoglobulin crystals — e.g., of the horse and the ass, of 
the dog and the fox, of the rabbit and the hare, or of the rat and 
the mouse — belong respectively to different systems, it will 
supply a serious argument in favour of independent creation. — 
Ed. J. S.] 
According to Prof. Claypole, of Ohio, many wild European 
plants have migrated into America, and have there become so 
common as to prevail over some of the indigenous plants of the 
country. Only two or three American wild plants have crossed 
