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PERSISTENT TYPES OF ANIMAL LIFE. 
OBSERVATIONS ON CHLOROFORM. 
Dr. Desfres, in a paper recently addressed to the Paris 
Academy of Sciences on chloroform as an anaesthetic, 
describes a method of his for removing the suspension of the 
respiratory functions, which is one of its effects. “ The 
action of chloroform,” he says, “ may be divided into periods r 
1, of repulsion ; 2, of excitement or convulsion; and 3, of 
resolution. The suspension of respiration is a phenomenon, 
which may manifest itself in each of these periods; when it 
does, it is caused in the first period by the voluntary occlusion 
of the glottis, or opening of the windpipe, which the patient 
instinctively closes in order to avoid the disagreeable 
sensation produced by the vapour of chloroform from its first 
inhalation; in the second by the convulsive and involuntary 
occlusion of the glottis, owing to the muscular contraction 
which characterises this period—a contraction which extends 
from the general muscular system to the muscles of the 
glottis; in the third stage, by the mechanical and involuntary 
occlusion of the upper orifice of the larynx, which is closed 
by the forcing of the tongue against the back and upper part 
of the mouth when chloroform is administered to the patient 
in a sitting posture, or else by the falling of the base of the 
tongue on that orifice when the patient lies on his back. I 
obviate, he says, the suspension of respiration by a method 
w r hich consists in introducing the index finger into the 
pharynx down to the base of the epiglottis, bending it in the 
shape of a hook, and thus raising the base of the tongue, and 
bringing it forward in the direction of a line supposed to be 
drawn from the base of the epiglottis to the upper part of the 
symphysis of the chin.” 
PERSISTENT TYPES OF ANIMAL LIFE. 
A discourse on this subject was delivered at the Royal 
Institution, June 3d, by Professor Huxley. He considered 
that palaeontologists had greatly exaggerated the number of 
animals viewed as extinct. After long investigation he con¬ 
cluded that of 120 ordinal types of animals only eight or nine 
types were extinct; and he added, on the authority of Dr. 
Joseph Hooker, the eminent botanist, that of the 200 ordinal 
types of plants not one was wanting. Professor Huxley 
exemplified his views from all departments of the animal 
