FACTS AND OBSERVATIONS. 
169 
the conclusion that the coloured material has ceased to 
exhibit vital properties. “The red material is not living, 
but results from changes occurring in colourless living 
matter, just as cuticle, or tendon, or cartilage, or the formed 
material of the liver-cell, results from changes occurring in 
the germinal matter of each of these cells. The colourless 
corpuscles, and those small corpuscles which are gradually 
undergoing conversion into red corpuscles, are living, but 
the old red corpuscles consist of inanimate matter.” 
Action of Oxygen on Animals. —MM. Demarquay and 
Leconte have ascertained by experiment that a dog might in¬ 
hale thirty or forty litres of oxygen gas with the effect only of 
increasing his appetite and spirits. Further, that the respira¬ 
tion of this gas, up to a certain amount, produces a remark¬ 
able beneficial action on large wounds which they made on 
animals. Also, that nearly two litres of oxygen may be 
injected into the veins of an animal without killing it. 
All this only goes to prove what was known long ago— 
that oxygen has the property of exalting the vital powers. 
Diseases amongst Cattle. —Accounts from Lausanne 
state that the disease of sore mouth and sore feet has attacked 
horned cattle in Switzerland in a terrific manner. The 
Executive Council have consequently commanded that no 
more cattle-markets shall be held. A strict watch is set 
upon all farmyards where the disease prevails, and upon 
those within a hundred yards of them. Cattle in the sus¬ 
pected farmyards are not to be permitted to drink at the 
public fountains. All strangers are forbidden to approach 
any farmyard, nor is any mendicant to pass the night there. 
Veterinary surgeons and police agents are desired, when they 
quit an infected stable, to wash and change their clothes 
before they enter another. Farmers are to adopt similar 
precautions when they attend a fair or market. 
New Styptic Compounds. —Two powerful styptics have 
lately been introduced. One consists of one part crystallized 
perchloride of iron dissolved in six parts of collodion. The 
union is to be effected slowly and carefully. After the 
application of this compound to the bleeding vessel or wound, 
an elastic pellicle is formed over it. 
The other consists of equal parts of a concentrated solu¬ 
tion of chloride of iron and chloride of iodine. Lint saturated 
with this is to be applied to the bleeding wound. 
