566 Notes. [September, 
organic life makes evident the logical need for the Theistic con- 
ception. 
M. Pasternatzks has investigated the seat of cortical epilepsy 
and of hallucinations. He finds that the attack of epilepsy in- 
duced in the dog by the essence of absinthe depends on certain 
parts of the grey matter of the cerebral hemispheres, and is' con- 
sequently true cortical epilepsy. The hallucinations observed in 
the author’s experiments are probably due to the exciting adtion 
of absinthe on the subcortical sensitive centres.- — Comptes Rendus. 
According to M. Arsonval (“ Comptes Rendus ”) eggs during 
the first days of incubation absorb much heat. This process is 
accompanied by an absorption of oxygen and an abundant libe- 
ration of carbonic acid. During sleep animals absorb much 
oxygen and evolve little heat, the emission of carbonic acid 
varying little. Animals are not merely the seat of oxidations 
and combustions. Every living being is at the same time a 
reducing apparatus which effecfts syntheses. 
We learn that a medical branch of the “ Malthusian League ” 
has been formed in this country. 
Sir James Paget, in his Presidential Address at the Medical 
Congress, said — “ It would be difficult to think of anything that 
seemed less likely to acquire practical utility than those researches 
of the few naturalists who, from Leeuwenhoeck to Ehrenberg, 
studied the most minute of living things, the Vibrionidas. Men 
boasting themselves as practical might ask, 4 What good can 
come of it?’ Time and scientific industry have answered, ‘This 
good : those researches have givtn a more true form to one of 
the most important practical docftrines of organic chemistry; 
they have introduced a great beneficial change in the most prac- 
tical part of surgery ; they are leading to one as great in the 
practice of medicine ; they concern the highest interests of agri- 
culture, and their power is not yet exhausted.’ ” 
The following specimen of Science for the million is taken 
verbatim et literatim from the “ Family Herald” of August: — 
“ Mr. Wallace says that the butterfly is unknown in South Ame- 
rica, the West Indies — except as a rare straggler in Cuba — and 
the Pacific Islands.” 
We learn that some 130 of the members of the Medical Con- 
gress were adroitly taken to the Croydon Sewage Farm, and 
regaled at a lunch the ingredients of which — as they were duly 
informed hy Dr. A. Carpenter — were “ transformed sewage.” 
Who guarantees the completeness of the “ transformation ?” 
According to the “ Siecle Medicale ” a man desirous of killing 
himself hammered a dagger, 10 centimetres in length, into his 
head up l/o the hilt. No unusual sensations being produced, a 
