552 
IS THE REMEDY WORSE THAN THE DISEASE? 
experiments, the bones died, and suppuration ensued. All these osseous 
secretions possessed the. true and normal characters of hone. The 
specimens clearly proved all the author advanced, and it would seem 
that the periosteum is the true secreting membrane of bone, and that 
it can be grafted in a manner similar to that of plants, and will, as it 
were, take root and grow. 
“l)r. Radcliffe showed a number of experiments ‘On Muscular 
Action in an Electrical Point of View.’ These were on the limbs of 
frogs, and were made with the aid of an electric battery. 
“ Dr Beale demonstrated, by a series of preparations and diagrams, 
how every elementary fibre of striped muscle was abundantly supplied 
with nerves. He believes that every single fibre receives one or more 
nervous fibres, which will be found hereafter to account for complicated 
muscular movements. Wherever these minute nerves are distributed 
are found little oval bodies, which are the means of communication 
between the muscular and nervous fibres. These nerves are found to be 
more numerous in some muscles than in others—the tongue and 
diaphragm, for example—and are surrounded by multitudes of these 
oval bodies. The nervous fibres are constantly undergoing decay and 
being reproduced. Dr. Beale’s discovery is one of considerable value in 
physiology, and much importance was attached to it by the association. 
“ Professor Van der Hoevan made some remarks on the anatomy of 
‘ Potto, 5 a curious species of small monkey from Borneo. 
“ Dr. B. W. Richardson read a lengthy paper ‘On the Influence of 
Oxygen on Animal Bodies.’ He enumerated a series of laborious expe¬ 
riments on the inhalation of oxygen. By these he established two major 
propositions:—1. That the influence of pure oxygen on animals varies 
according to the animal, being most marked in those of quick respira¬ 
tion and high temperature, and less marked in those of feeble respira¬ 
tion and lower temperature. 2. That oxygen gas, breathed over and 
over again, and freed entirely from any substances which we as yet 
know as products of respiration, loses the power of supporting life, the 
vital process ceasing, not from the introduction of a poison, but as by a 
negation, or withdrawal of the vivifying principle. 
“ ‘The Physiological Relations of the Colouring Matter of the Bile - ’ 
was the subject of the next paper, by Dr. Thudichum. He had sub¬ 
jected various specimens of chlorochrome (as he proposed to term the 
substance) to chemical analysis, and found that it was an amido-acid, 
and nearly related to the other acids of the bile. Its precipitation from 
solution in bile, when it occurred already in the gall-ducts, by a process 
closely resembling that of putrefaction of bile in a bottle, was an ascer¬ 
tained cause of so-called idiopathic jaundice. He described various 
products of decomposition of chlorochrome; amongst them, chloro- 
chromic acid, a substance which, microscopically, closely resembled 
lisematoidine.” 
IS THE REMEDY WORSE THAN THE DISEASE ? 
It has been proposed to purify the water of the River 
Thames, which during the two past years has been in the 
summer months very offensive, and consequently fears have 
been awakened of its being productive of disease, by means of 
