FACTS AND OBSERVATIONS. 
341 
which was in a very unhealthy condition, discharging pro¬ 
fusely, and producing an offensive smell, which was not 
wliolly obviated by free ventilation of the ward, and the use 
of disinfectants. It occurred to Dr. Hewson to try the deodo¬ 
rising and absorbent effects of dry earth. The results are 
said to have been extremely good ; the smell was entirely re¬ 
moved, and the wound itself assumed a far more favorable 
aspect. The idea seems a plausible one ; but we give the 
account for w^hat it is worth. It serves to illustrate, if true, 
one of the marked features of the dry-earth system—viz., the 
power to arrest offensive odours by the direct application of 
dry earth to their source, instead of acting on the whole 
volume of vitiated air by means of aerial disinfectants.” 
Facts and Observations. 
Influence of Pneumogastric Nerves on Respira- 
' TiON. —A paper by Hen* Voit and Rauber appears in the 
report of the Academy of Sciences of Munich. It has been 
concluded from previous experiments of other physiologists 
that the amount of carbonic acid exhaled after section of the 
nerve is the same as that before. Herr Voit and Dr. Rauber 
find now that this is true only for the first few hours after 
the operation. At a later period, when the tissue of the lung 
has begun to undergo a change, the quantity of carbonic 
acid diminishes rapidly, and that of oxygen is increased.— 
Popular Science Review, 
The Pacinian Corpuscles. —The structure of these 
bodies has been studied by Professor Ciaccio, who has just 
published a long and admirably illustrated memoir upon it. 
The conclusions arrived at are chiefly as to the relation of 
the nerve to the club-shaped centre. This relation is one, 
according to the author, of continuity. He does not admit 
the existence of either a loop or a coil. —Ibid. 
Animal Life in Water at Great Pressure. —In 
proof of Dr. Carpenter's idea that the pressure of water has 
little effect on the vitality of animals, M. Deville has at his 
laboratory an apparatus erected by M. Cailletet, in which 
fishes are living under a pressure of 400 atmospheres, proving 
that the greatest depths of the ocean may be habitable.— Ibid. 
The Horse in pre-Historic Times. —In his paper 
this year communicated to the Royal Society on the fossil 
equine remains of the Cave of Bruniquel, Professor Owen 
tates that the sum of the several comparisons was to refer 
