EDINBURGH MEETING. 
517 
To return to the supposed telegraphic case,—if we could ensure that the 
whole apparatus within some one county at a distance from London, say Cum¬ 
berland, were in good order, and found that the bells rung in Cumberland, 
and nowhere else, when a message was sent from Manchester, we should 
know that the mischief was not in the apparatus for sending the up message, 
nor in the up wires, nor in the head office, nor in the down wires, for to reach 
Cumberland the message had to passthrough districts where the injury existed ; 
the fault must be either at the receiving offices or in the bells. If now we can 
go directly to the bells throughout the country, and find that they can be rung, 
we prove the fault to lie at the receiving offices. In the case of the frog, we 
can, by tying the artery of one leg, prevent the poison from reaching that leg, 
which thus represents Cumberland in the case above; if the frog be now 
pinched anywhere he kicks with the unpoisoned leg, proving, as above, that the 
poison does not act on the terminations of the sensory nerves, nor on the trunks 
of the seusory nerves, nor on the nerve-centres, nor on the motor nerve-trunks, 
but that its action must be either on the terminations of the motor nerves, or 
on the muscular fibres. But we find that the muscles contract when directly 
stimulated, showing that they are not injured, and we thus prove that the 
paralysis is produced by a destruction of the power of the terminations of the 
motor nerves to receive the stimulus and transmit it to the muscles. 
Strychnia produces tetanic convulsions, by exciting the nerve-centres in the 
spinal cord, but the substances formed by rendering the trebly-related nitrogen 
atom of strychnia permanently fivefold-related produce paralysis, and do so in 
the very remarkable way described above. Not only is this the case with 
strychuia, but we have found that the same change is produced in every alka¬ 
loid we have examined, which has an action like that of strychnia. 
It will be seen that we have as yet made but little progress towards the solu¬ 
tion of the very important question, What is the relation between chemical con¬ 
stitution and physiological action? We may, however, reasonably expect that 
a series of investigations, such as that sketched above, will throw a good deal of 
light on the subject. 
The paper was illustrated by numerous diagrams, and, at the close, a cordial 
vote of thanks was awarded to Dr. Brown for his very able and interesting 
communication. 
A meeting took place in St. George’s Hall on Friday evening, 10th of April; 
Mr. Young, President, in the chair. 
Professor Archer, of the Edinburgh Museum of Science and Art, made the 
following communication on some of the pharmaceutical products of the Cape 
of Good Hope :— 
Composite.— Genus Helichrysum. —(1.) Koe Thee, or Fyne Hottentots Kooigoed — 
H. serpyllfolium. For pulmonary complaints. (2.) Lange Rheebok Thee—//. sp. 
(3.) Kurt Rheebok Thee— H. sp. Both used for the cure of waterbrast. (4.) Buik 
pyn Thee— ti. sp. Used for Colic. 
Genus Artemisia. —(1.) A. Afra— South African Wormwood. Extensively used as 
a vermifuge and tonic, and for jaundice, etc.; externally its leaves are used with hot 
water as a poultice in dropsy, and their infusion for weak eyes. 
Genus Tanacetum. —(1.) Wilde Kamille— T. multijlorum. Used either in powder 
or infusion as a tonic, antispasmodic and anthelmintic. 
Genus Osmites. —Berg Beilis, or Mountain Daisy— 0. hirsuta. Antispasmodic, and 
externally the tincture instead of that of Arnica. 
Genus Carduus. —Cardebenedict — C. benedictus. Emetic and diaphoretic; also as a 
tonic in dyspepsia. 
