As might be expected, Dr. Ley rejects as empirical the various remedies that are found in the ordinary sources of information on infantile diseases; whether designed for the relief of convulsive spasm, cerebral excitement, painful dentition, or a disposition to scrofula, although he acknowledges that the latter "are neither useless nor even ambiguous remedies ;" and he substitutes a line of treatment which is most conducive to the removal of that pressure on the recurrent nerve which he supposes to be the immediate cause of danger

"In the treatment, therefore, of this complaint, it should be a primary object to ascertain if these glands are enlarged, and tracing, if possible, the producing cause of such enlargement, to adapt our remedial measures to that cause. Nor must we simply, from difficulty in detecting its existence during life, conclude that there is in reality no such pathological condition. Tumid glands may, as has been already shewn, escape detection, even when seated in the neck; whilst if situated within the thorax they are always beyond the reach of our external senses. But, as similar diseased conditions commonly produce the same or similar results, we infer from the occurrence of the latter, the existence of the former.

"But the pathological condition of these glands only establishes the liability to the attacks; the paroxysms generally require for their production, the intermediate agency of some other event, which is to be considered as their exciting cause. It is therefore a second, but far from secondary point in the treatment of the laryngismus stridulus to distinguish, and to prevent or counteract the operation of these causes of the paroxysms.

As, moreover, the attack has been in some instances suddenly fatal by producing suffocation, the patient can never be considered as quite free from hazard, and it is necessary, therefore, so to treat each paroxysm as to shorten as much as possible its duration. These are the three leading principles of treatment, and under one or other of these indications of cure, as they are technically called, all our remedies may be arranged and considered.”

We, by no means seek to inquire very minutely as to the principles on which the above indications are founded, seeing that they embrace the measures usually resorted to for the removal of a scrofulous diathesis, and involve in their details those attentions to diet, temperature, clothing, and pure air, that have by all practitioners, no matter on what theory founded, been recommended in this disease and employed with the greatest success. Into these details it is impossible for us to enter, or even to afford our readers a superficial sketch of them. It would be injurious to our author thus to mutilate the very best of his chapters, and it would be unjust to any professional reader to deprive him, even in the slightest degree, of the pleasure and VOL. IX. NO. 26. 2 R

advantage he must derive from a perusal of this part of Doctor Ley's work. There is in it an attention to the smallest minutiæ in the management of the infant that could only be attained by long experience and patient observation, and we venture to predict that any person carefully studying the pages now open before us, will reap an ample reward in the stores of information he may thence derive; and in the facility it will afford him in the management of many other infantile diseases besides the laryngismus stridulus.

W. H. P.

De Phaenomeno generali et fundamentali Motus vibratorii continui, in membranis cum externis tum internis animalium plurimorum et superiorum et inferiorum ordinum obvii, Commentatio Physiologica. Scripserunt Prof. Dr. JOH. Ev. PURKINJE et Dr. G. VALENTIN, Wratislavienses, Wratislaviæ, 1835, pp. 96, 4to.

In the seventh volume of this Journal, p. 279, was given a translation of the article in Müller's Archiv. 1834, in which the singular discovery of the existence of continued vibratory movements produced by cilia in amphibia, birds, and mammalia, was communicated to the world. In the following year, Drs. Purkinje and Valentin published the work now before us, containing a curtailed account of their experiments and conclusions on this interesting subject, together with an elaborate historicocritical conspectus, occupying thirty pages of what had been written on the subject of vibratory motion up to this period. In: this conspectus, by the way, occurs an amusing remark on Sir Everard Home's statement in the Philosophical Transactions for 1827, that Mr. Baner discovered that the rotation of the embryo of the muscle therein described was produced by a small worm that had got into the vesicle and was feeding on the embryo. The authors declare they are at a loss to know whether he is quizzing or dreaming. "Anglus num jocet, an somniat, nescire nos fatemur." As it is not my intention, however, to give a complete analysis of the work, but merely a notice that may serve as a supplement to the translation of the original communication, I shall at once proceed to select such parts as I consider best suited to that purpose.

Vibratory motion in general is defined as follows: "When any part of an animal, immersed in water or some other fluid, produces currents by which minute particles are attracted and repelled, and this process continues independently of any voluntary act or motion of the animal, proper muscular contraction,

or circulation, we say that vibratory motion is present; and this, as shall be proved at large, depends not only most frequently, but in every instance, on the action of slender cilia." The authors proceed to observe, that when the body in which the motion resides is fixed, the current will merely proceed along its surface; but that when it is small and suspended freely in the fluid, it will move itself also, and this motion may be simply progressive, rotatory and progressive, circumvolvent, or fluctuating, according to circumstances.

The method of observation has been already sufficiently detailed in the former notice, but there are same directions about the light to be employed, which it may be as well to add. Bright day light is stated to be the best for beginners, but when the sky is cloudy, a lamp is preferable. Direct sunshine only confuses. The observer must guard against various sources of deception, such as the flow of blood from capillaries, the employment of water containing animalcules, and, above all, the optical margin produced by the inflexion of light.

With respect to the classes of animals in which the motion occurs, that of fishes appears to form the only exception, though even here the authors are inclined to agree with Sharpey, that it may be detected in the branchia of the embryos of the ray and shark. In mammalia birds, and amphibia, it is universal. The same perhaps may be said of the mollusca. If it has been observed in the remaining classes only partially; this may be owing, not to its absence, but to the imperfection of the instruments employed, and want of sufficient skill in the observer.

As to the parts that have been found endowed with this remarkable property, they may be referred to four classes, according as they belong to the cutaneous, the alimentary, the respiratory, or the genital system. It has been observed in those of the first class, only in the larvae of some of the amphibia, and in many of the invertebrata. Under the head of the alimentary system, the authors correct an assertion they had previously made, that the longitudinal fleshy elevation in the intestine of the river muscle is alone possessed of the property, as they have since discovered it to reside in the whole of the alimentary canal in this and similar animals. The respiratory and genital systems have been sufficiently discussed in the original memoir; and it only remains to add that the internal surface of the air-cells in birds, most distinctly exhibits the phenomenon of vibratory motion. It is to be observed that all the organs above enumerated belong to the vegetative or organic functions.

The cilia that produces this phenomenon are slender, pellucid, colourless, sub-splendent threads of equal size, with their

base resting on the surface of the membrane, and their apex free. Their length varies considerably, namely, from 0.000075 to 0.000908 of a French inch, and in almost every instance they taper from the base to the apex. Their motion is generally infundibuliform, the base of each revolving, so as to form the apex of the hollow cone; this may occasionally pass into oscillation. In a few instances the whole of each cilium appeared to wave to and fro like the tail of a spermatozoon; and in one case, in the branchiæ of some of the species of unio, the upper third of each was inflected and reflected, the two lower thirds remaining stationary. This revolving motion of the cilia must depend either on the presence of irritable or muscular tissue in their bulbs, or, more probably, on certain straight, parallel, stiff fibres, united by delicate cellular tissue, which compose the surface of the vibrating membrane, as may readily be seen by examining a portion of it with the microtomic compressor. If a portion of the trachea of an ox be macerated in warm water for half an hour, these fibres will be detached, and found floating in great quantities in the fluid. It must be remarked, however, that a similar stratum of fibres has been observed in membranes that do not vibrate.

Concussion has a considerable influence in exciting or accelerating the motion of the cilia: light has none; heat, when greater than the natural heat of the animal, disturbs or stops it altogether, according to its degree, and the length of time it is allowed to act. Moderate degrees of electricity and galvanism have no physical effect on it.

The difference of the effects of chemical agents is very remarkable. Some that act powerfully on the nervous system, such as hydrocyanic acid, belladonna, opium, &c. have no influence on the ciliary motion; while decomponents and corrosives, such as acids and alkalies, put a stop to it immediately. Blood has the remarkable property of preserving it in mammalia and birds for so long as three days, and in amphibia for four: the blood should be well shaken to prevent coagulation, but even the serum has the same property. In the invertebrata, on the contrary, these fluids immediately destroy the ciliary motion. Milk and white of egg have rather a conservative influence. Inflammation checks or stops it, not only in the inflamed parts, but even in the whole organ affected. During the winter sleep of hibernating animals it continues undiminished.

It is mentioned in the addenda to the treatise, that, by availing themselves of the conservative properties of blood, the authors were at last enabled to discover cilia in the human subject also. Their previous attempts had failed from the length of time they were obliged to suffer to elapse after death, before commencing their observations. It only remains to add

that the ciliary motion appears at a very early period of the evolution of animal life, as it has been detected in the mucous membrane of the nostrils and trachea, in the embryos of mammalia of the length of only two inches, and in the minute larvæ of amphibia while yet in the ovum.

W. WEST.

Memoirs de l'Academie Royale de Medicine. Tome cinqmeme, 1836.

WITHOUT possessing the interest in a practical point of view which distinguished the last Number of these admirable Transactions, the present fasciculus contains many papers of importance. We are presented, in the first place, with a long and laboured eloge on the celebrated Chaussier, by M. Pariset, in which the labours of this eminent pathologist and physician are fully and justly displayed. We would hold him up to the imitation of the student as one of those who have not buried their talent in the earth, but have returned it with interest at their master's call. During a period of more than sixty years, he never remitted in his exertions to forward the science of medicine, and proved himself a worthy contemporary of Fourcroy, of Vauquelin, of Corvisart, and of Frank.

We have next the announcement of the prizes proposed by the Academy for the ensuing year. These shall be mentioned in the Scientific Intelligence. But we cannot help expressing our regret at the absence of the stimulus of prizes in our Irish school. Let us hope that the evil will be soon remedied. By a little exertion, funds for such purposes could soon be raised, and of the benefit which would result we entertain not a doubt.

A notice on the Plague of Moscow, by M. Girardin, and a long memoir on Inguino-interstitial Hernia, by M. Goyrand, are the next papers. These are succeeded by one of the most interesting medical fragments we have ever perused. It is entitled, Le Bicetre en 1792, and gives an account of the liberation of its wretched inmates from the chains with which ignorance rather than cruelty had loaded them. It is a bright page in the history of the illustrious Pinel, which records that in the midst of the horrors of the French Revolution, he emancipated the lunatic from a grievous tyranny. Strange result, that freedom, then drove the sane to madness, but restored the lunatic to reason and sobriety. What a lesson in the moral and physical history of man.

The effects of corrosive sublimate in preserving wood, is