7 
of irritation of these ganglia than in the cases of human paraplegia from 
chill of surface. I have great hopes that further research may determine 
the possibility of producing in quadrupeds like phenomena, and until then 
it were perhaps wiser to refrain from further speculation. 
There yet remains one very puzzling question. I have been totally 
unable to occasion any of the phenomena which I have dwelt upon by 
chilling or freezing the skin with ether. Why this should be, I cannot say. 
Both Dr. Richardson and myself have obtained perfectly satisfactory back¬ 
ward motions by chilling the spine itselt with this agent, but by no varia- 
t m of treatment has it been made to occasion like effects when used on 
tne skin alone. I trust that others may be more fortunate. I should add 
t lat blistering the skin, the use of rhigolene kept from evaporating by 
ciled silk placed over it, as well as numerous other methods of irritation, 
Lave one and all failed to reproduce the results which are given by the 
rhigolene jet. I do not think that any of the ethers to be obtained here 
have so low a boiling point as those used by Dr. Richardson, and since it 
is the peculiarity of rhigolene to freeze or chill very abruptly, owing to its 
low boiling point, it may happen that transatlantic observers will be able 
to repeat my experiments with ethers, which in this respect approach it in 
their mode of action. I am not aware that rhigolene has been used abroad, 
and on this very account I have been careful to exhibit my experiments to 
numerous physicians, among whom were Mr. Spencer Wells and Drs. Nico- 
layson, Loring, Keen, Mears, and Parry. I was ably assisted throughout 
these researches by Dr. John T. Wilson, of Maryland. 
