100 
Facts and Observations. 
New Motor System of the Heart. —Professor Yon 
Bezold, of Jena, states that he has, in the course of some 
researches on the motions of the heart, discovered a new 
source of motor nerves of this organ, which connect it much 
more intimately and importantly than the cervical sympa¬ 
thetic, or even the par vagum, with the cerebro-spinal sys¬ 
tem. The experiment of poisoning various animals with 
woorara led him to the belief that the new central organ 
has its seat neither in the medulla oblongata nor in the 
brain. Further experiments, however, are necessary to 
develop the discovery. 
Oxygen Gas. —At a recent sitting of the Academy of 
Sciences of Munich, Baron Liebig made a very interesting 
communication relative to some experiments with a new 
apparatus—manufactured chiefly at the expense of the 
King of Bavaria—for detecting the existence and measuring 
the quantity of oxygen in various bodies. The experiments, 
Baron Liebig stated, had proved clearly that oxygen is not 
only evolved from the atmosphere by plants, but also in 
tolerably large quantities by decomposition of water in the 
bodies of flesh-eating animals. Baron Liebig thinks that the 
knowledge of this fact will throw quite a new light on the 
hitherto but imperfectly understood processes of nutrition 
and digestion. 
Pure Pepsine. —Pepsine may be precipitated from its 
solutions by agitation with cholesterine, with phosphate of 
lime, or even with animal charcoal. Dissolved in water con¬ 
taining phosphoric acid, it may be precipitated when we 
neutralize by lime-water; it is then contained in the preci¬ 
pitate of phosphate of lime without always being found in a 
state of combination. On these facts M. Brucke has founded 
a new process of procuring this important substance in a 
state of purity hitherto unknown, which has enabled him to 
correct a number of assertions respecting it to be found in 
treatises. The details of his process for obtaining it from 
the mucous membrane of the stomach of a pig will be found 
in a late number of the Journal de Pharmacie^ where it is 
said that our notions respecting pepsine ought to be changed, 
and that its analysis is yet to be made. 
