Intelligence and Miscellaneous Articles, 34*1 
stated to exist between the final product of the action of chlorine on 
protocarburetted hydrogen, and the final product of the action of 
chlorine on chloroform : a final product which is represented by 
Cl^, and obtained in the first case by the loss of eight volumes of 
hydrogen, replaced by eight volumes of chlorine, and in the second 
case by the loss of two volumes of hydrogen, replaced by CP. 
It appears to M. Persoz that in this case M. Dumas has con- 
founded a phsenomenon of alteration with a pheenomenon of dis- 
placement. Will it be said, that because on burning four volumes 
of protocarburetted hydrogen with an excess of oxygen, there are 
obtained four volumes of carbonic acid containing four volumes of 
oxygen equivalent to eight volumes of hydrogen, there occurs in 
this fact an additional proof in favour of the theory of substitutions, 
and that eight volumes of hydrogen being taken from C® they 
ought to be replaced by four volumes of oxygen ? Will carbonic 
acid be ever confounded with protocarburetted hydrogen in the same 
chemical type ? certainly not ; for all chemists agree, and M. Dumas 
especially, in admitting that in such a combustion the quantity of 
oxygen fixed with the carbon depends on the number of the atoms of 
the latter body ; so that, in an organic compound, two atoms of 
carbon being combined with eight to twenty or any number of 
atoms of hydrogen, this compound being decomposed by excess of 
oxygen, there will be only four volumes of oxygen combined with 
the carbon. Will not M. Dumas admit, that in destroying, as he 
has done, with excess of chlorine, chloroform protocarburetted 
hydrogen, compounds which both contain two atoms of carbon, he 
could in fact obtain only chloride of carbon, corresponding to car- 
bonic acid, that is to say 2 C CP = CP, in the same way as by de- 
stroying protocarburetted hydrogen by excess of oxygen, there are ob- 
tained 2C 0^= C® O'*, without resorting to his theory of substitutions ? 
M. Persoz adds, that it appears to him important to refer to the 
fact that the formation of pond gas served him as a means of disco- 
vering the mysterious agency of water in the reactions of organic 
bodies. By this decomposition of water, he explains the conversion 
of starch into sugar, that of sugar into alcohol, and that of certain 
immediate principles into essential oils ; and he also conceives that 
he can reduce to the same order of phsenomena (that of oxidize- 
ment) the action of nitric acid and hydrate of potash on sugar, 
which, as it is well known, is converted by both of these agents into 
oxalic acid. — Ulnstitut, No. 323. 
ON ARSENIC CONTAINED NATURALLY IN THE HUMAN BODY. 
M. Orfila has read a memoir on the above subject before the Royal 
Academy of Medicine ; the experiments detailed were made with M. 
Couerbe, and their object was to solve the following questions : 
1st, Does arsenic exist originally in the human body? 2ndly, Do 
the viscera contain any ? 3rdly, Can its existence in the muscles be 
proved ? 4thly, Is it possible to determine that the arsenic obtained 
from a corpse is not that which originally existed among the ele- 
ments composing the tissues, but was introduced into the digestive 
organs, applied to the exterior, &c. ? 
