372 
Notes. 
[June, 
M. C. Barthelemy (“ Comptes Rendus ”), having placed a 
number of hyacinths in glasses in a circle around the pipe of a 
stove, found that the roots took an almost horizontal direction 
towards the pipe, as a common centre of attraction. 
M. Legrand du Saulle (“Medical Press and Circular”) notes 
the increase of insanity in France, which he ascribes to the thirst 
for enjoyment, the passion for riches, the risks on the Exchange 
(in other words to worry), and above all to alcoholism. 
[Fully admitting the increase of alcoholism in France, we may 
still ask whether it, too, is not to a great extent due to worry ?) 
The 500th anniversary of the foundation of the University of 
Heidelberg will shortly be celebrated. The sum of £8000 has 
been voted by the Baden Parliament to defray the expenses. 
P. Rosenbach has found experimentally that potassium bromide 
diminishes the sensibility of the cortical substance of the cere- 
brum to eledtric excitement, whilst the excitability of the under- 
lying white substance remains unaltered. 
P. Hende announces the existence in Corea of a small rumi- 
nant of the genus Hydropotes, differing from the H. inermis of 
Swinhoe, both by its cranial charaffiers and by the lighter colour 
of its coat. 
Four species of fossil reptiles, of the genus Simcedosaurus, 
have been recently discovered in the neighbourhood of Rheims. 
Mr. David Hooper, F.C.S., of Birmingham, has been ap- 
pointed, by the Secretary of State for India, Analytical Chemist 
and Quinologist to the Nilgiri Government Cinchona Plantations 
in the Madras Presidency. 
[A learned contemporary states that Mr. Hooper has been ap- 
pointed “ Analogist ” to the Plantations. 
Mr. J. P. Joule, the illustrious physicist, speaking of Dr. 
Bardsley’s proposal to stamp out hydrophobia by keeping all dogs 
isolated for four months, says : — “ It is difficult to understand 
the intellectual and moral condition of a public which, by the 
negleCt of this obvious precaution, consigns to a frightful death 
probably as large a number of persons as those who by common 
custom are exclusively spoken of as murdered.” 
It appears that there are now, in London, three distind 
Spiritualist associations, twoTheosophic societies, — one of which, 
the “ Hermetic Lodge,” includes not a few prominent Bestia- 
rians, — besides the Society for Psychical Research, in which, 
according to “ Light,” the “ veriest agnostic may find rest for 
the sole of his foot, and wonder how he came there.” 
According to a letter which the “ Medical Press ” quotes from 
the “ Madras Courier ” of 1819, inoculation for smallpox, and 
