Notes. 
5 6 4 
[September, 
Trichinosis is still exciting much attention in both continents. 
However, the alarm is not sufficient to lead a certain part of the 
public to abandon the practice of eating raw and semi-raw meat. 
With reference to Dr. Clevenger’s note on the close connection 
of the primitive desires (“ Science,” January 15, 1881) we learn 
that “ mulieres in coitu nonnunquam genas cervicemque maris 
mordent.” 
Prof. Cope (“American Naturalist ”) points out that the mam- 
malian types with reduced digits are dwellers on dry ground, 
whilst those with more numerous digits inhabit swamp and mud. 
Dr. F. L. Oswald, writing on “Physical Education,” in the 
“ Popular Science Monthly,” makes a powerful onslaught upon 
asceticism. 
Dr. Dyce Duckworth (“ Practitioner ”) enlarges on the “ In- 
sufficient Use of Milk.” He says “ It seems certain that our 
farmers can no longer grow cereals so as to make them a source 
of profit.” For a conclusive reply to this assertion we may refer 
him to Mr. Prout’s recent pamphlet. 
We learn that mosquitoes occur in the Loffoden Islands, — 
bare, rocky, constantly swept by the wind, and free from marshes 
and jungles. What can be their alleged sanitary function there ? 
According to the “ Scientific American ” a curious observation 
has been made by Dr. Moritz Benedict, of Vienna. He published 
a book about a year ago, “ Analomische Studien an Verbrecher- 
gehirnen,” in which he states that in nearly one-half of the 
brains of persistent criminals the superior frontal convolution is 
not continuous, but is divided into four sub-convolutions, analo- 
gous to the disposition of the parts found in predatory animals. 
In a recent paper (“ Centralblatt fur Med. Wiss.,” November 13, 
1880) he argues that much of moral perversity may and must be 
the result of this defleCIion of the cerebral organs from the nor- 
mal type, producing, as it necessarily would, other arrangements 
of cerebral nutrition and haemostatic relations. It cannot be 
fortuitous that the mental characteristics of the most perverse 
criminals, and also the cerebral anatomy, both resemble those of 
wild beasts : this double analogy must be one of cause and 
effeCt. 
[If the persistent, hereditary criminal is thus marked out by a 
peculiar central conformation, the prospeCts of his reclamation 
must surely be very slender.] 
The “ Konigsberger Land-u. forst. Zeitung.” reports that cases 
of hermaphrodism are frequent in fish, especially in the sturgeon. 
Principal J. W. Dawson, in a LeCture on the “ Relations of 
Natural Science to Monistic and Agnostic Speculations,” re- 
ported in the “ Philadelphia Times,” discussed the three theories 
