THE PHARMACEUTICAL JOURNAL AND TRANSACTIONS. 
71 
July 22,1871.] 
busy of France, whose mortification, by the way, 
las found vent in abuse not only of the Prussians 
t>r their success, but of the English for their impas- 
aveness. Captain Henry Bracken bury described 
vith much pictorial power the privations encoun¬ 
tered by the servants of the “ Red Cross,” whose 
achievements, though hardly less dangerous, were 
by no means so dazzling as those of the belligerents. 
An interesting letter from Miss Nightingale, read 
at the close of the evening, held out encouraging 
prospects for the efficiency of the International So¬ 
ciety in the event of another war On an equal scale. 
At Willis’s Rooms, Sir William Fergusson presided 
on Tuesday at a banquet given to the French dele¬ 
gates. Dr. Ricord, who spoke in English, made a 
really brilliant speech, in eulogy of English medi¬ 
cine, its masters and its dispensers. Dr. Demarquay 
followed, in French, with felicitous effect; while Dr. 
Gull brought the evening to a satisfactory termina¬ 
tion by proposing the “ war correspondents,” and in 
the course of his speech paid a well-deserved tribute 
to the energy and success displayed in organizing 
the reception of the deputation by Mr. Ernest Hart. 
IMAGINATIVE SCIENCE. 
The forebodings evidently entertained by Pro¬ 
fessor Tyndall that some of the propositions laid 
down in his recent lecture on the above subject 
would be disputed have proved to be correct, the 
lecture having received rather severe criticism at 
the hands of some of our medical contemporaries. 
Thus the British Medical Journal, while express¬ 
ing a disposition to welcome such contributions as 
so able a physicist as Professor Tyndall can make 
to medicine in the shape of that exact scientific ob¬ 
servation which is the surest basis, points to the 
circumstance that the Professor’s striking experi¬ 
ments have not added anything to our knowledge of 
the chemical or biological relations of those air- 
born particles we knew to be ubiquitous even before 
he illuminated them with the electric beam. Besides 
tills, it is objected that he starts mainly from infor¬ 
mation derived from chance communications, and 
then proceeding to reason upon the subject, arrives, 
by a flight of imagination, at conclusions which are 
sometimes singularly at variance with facts; as, for 
instance, when he declares that the most successful 
workers and profound thinkers of the medical pro¬ 
fession are daily growing more and more convinced 
“ that contagious disease generally is of the same 
“ parasitic character as the silkworm disease, called 
“ pebrine .” 
The Lancet, also in referring to the note from Mr. 
Ellis, quoted by Professor Tyndall (p. 5), con¬ 
fesses to having entertained a fingering hope that 
the learned Professor, when he cited and supported 
such a statement, was amusing himself by an expe¬ 
riment on the credulity of his audience, for such a 
supposition was less painful than to imagine that 
one who has climbed the heights of physical philo¬ 
sophy could be so easily misled. It continues:— 
“ Every one who has ever seen a blister knows that the 
stretched cuticle, when punctured, does not at once apply 
itself completely to the surface that it previously covered,, 
but falls more or less in folds, leaving spaces which air 
must occupy,—carrying with it whatever ‘ it contains/ 
Every one who has ever vaccinated knows, also, that iru 
the ordinary methods the entrance of air is prevented: 
by the effusion of blood, which immediately dries into el 
crust, and hermetically seals the solution of continuity" 
below. Mr. Ellis’s blister must distinctly tend to pro¬ 
mote the contact of air with the fluids of the body'. His • 
assertion that the occurrence of secondary abscess is by 
no means uncommon, and his suggestion that his own 
experience is exceptional in that he has had no such oc¬ 
currence ‘ out of hundreds of cases ’ are alike in direct 
opposition to facts within the knowledge of every r prac¬ 
titioner. If Professor Tyndall has only such buttresses; 
as these for the doctrines to which he has committed 
himself, he would do w'ell to lay aside his endeavours to* 
promulgate them. 
“ From vaccination Professor Tyndall goes on to spe¬ 
culate upon other questions of medical experience, and to> 
treat of specific contagion generally, in its relation to the 
derivation of all fife from pre-existent fife. He here de¬ 
fends himself from an imaginary charge of stepping be¬ 
yond his metier , and does so on the plea that he is not. 
writing a prescription, nor seeking to draw any' conclu¬ 
sion from the pulses or tongues of his audience. Such a 
limitation or description of the sphere of medical duties 
would be intelligible if it proceeded from the lips of a 
monthly' nurse; but a man of science ought to entertain 
a different view of the functions of a physician, just as a 
man of even ordinary' discretion might feel some mis¬ 
giving about his fitness to appreciate the data offered by 
studies quite foreign to those in which he is accustomed, 
to engage. Before Professor Tyndall can hold his owm 
in biological investigations, he must find a new balance in 
which to weigh the value of the statements made to him 
by' those whom he puts forward as authorities. 
“ Our reference to statements makes it worth while to 
point out that Professor Tyndall appears to be desirous 
of introducing a new nomenclature, which ho has not 
y r et made clear by definitions. We have already' seen 
that he advances Mr. Ellis’s ‘facts’ in order that they 
may be sifted, and challenged if they be not correct. He 
refers to the advocates of spontaneous generation as 
dealing in ‘ dubious facts and defective logic.’ Now it is 
really worth while to consider for a moment what must 
be the state of mind of a lecturer who speaks about 
‘ dubious facts,’ and who proposes certain other facts as 
proper subjects for the operation of sifting, by' which,, 
it seems, they may be found not to be ‘correct.’ Wer 
can form no conception whatever of what Professor 
Tyndall means either by a correct fact or by' a dubious 
one. The conclusion of the lecture was devoted to a de¬ 
scription of an improved respirator, intended to enable 
its wearer to breathe safely in a burning house; and. 
here Professor Tyndall, dealing with questions which 
he has made his own, found himself once more on firm, 
ground, and was able fully to sustain the reputation tha'i 
at first he had so gratuitously endangered.” 
ACCIDENTAL POISONING. 
In reference to the case reported and commented 
on by us the week before last, the Graphic lias the 
following remarks, which show that the writer was 
not only misinformed as to the facts, but is also 
under very erroneous impressions otherwise:— 
“ An Islington jury has this week expressed the opinion 
