ORIGIN OF INFUSORIA. 
333 
diseased suffered more or less from sores on the hands, 
which were a long- time before they healed, and two of them 
had much constitutional disturbance. 
According to Dr. Crisp, the effects of eating the spleen or 
other viscera are still more extraordinary. Mr. Edward 
Cooper, of Great Oakley, Essex, lost seven fat hogs from 
their eating the paunch of an ox that had splenic apoplexy; 
and a man in the same village lost last August thirteen 
ferrets from a like cause. Many analogous instances are 
cited to put the agriculturist on his guard, and to convince 
him of the necessity of burying at once the bodies of all 
creatures dying from this strange disease. The evidence 
adduced respecting the death of many animals from eating 
the uncooked flesh, blood, and viscera of oxen dying from it 
would be, perhaps, sufficient to convince some persons of its 
injurious effects upon man. M. Garreau maintains that a 
volatile poison is connected with the malady, and that, 
judging from inoculation, the virus loses its virulence after a 
certain time. Dr. Crisp has not been able himself to procure 
reliable evidence to show that the cooked flesh is injurious; 
but it must be remembered that most of the animals that die 
of splenic apoplexy are sent to London or some large town, 
and the meat distributed in various directions, so that it is 
very difficult to ascertain its effects. This investigator hopes 
to settle the question, however, by a series of experiments 
that he purposes undertaking as soon as he can obtain 
the bodies of animals which have died from the disorder.— 
Lancet, 
THE ORIGIN OE INFUSORIA. 
In a recent address on physiology, delivered before the 
British Medical Association, Dr. Sharpey said, te In the phy¬ 
siology of reproduction, the old question of spontaneous 
generation has been lately revived and submitted to further 
discussion; but, as I think, has been satisfactorily answered 
in the negative,*' and especially through the admirable 
researches of M. Pasteur. That most able and accomplished 
inquirer has not only proved the non-appearance of infusorial 
organisms when adequate means are taken to exclude their 
germs, but he has succeeded in actually demonstrating the 
presence of such germinal spores in the atmosphere. Air 
was made to pass through a tube filled with gun-cotton 
taken from a sample proved to be free from foreign admixture. 
The cotton w r as then dissolved in ether or chloroform, and the 
