More interesting is the account of a successful case of transfusion of blood in the human subject, performed in presence of the ablest surgeons of Paris. A woman was taken to the Hôtel Dieu reduced by hemorrhage to the last stage of weakness, unable to speak, to open her eyes, or to draw back her tongue when put out. The basilic vein was opened, and the point of a syringe, warmed to the proper temperature, was introduced, charged with blood drawn from the same vein in the arm of one of the assistants. The quantity, 180 grammes, was injected in 2½ minutes, after which the wound was dressed, and the patient placed in a comfortable position. Gradually, the beatings of the pulse rose from 130 to 138, and became firmer; the action of the heart increased in energy; the eyes opened with a look of intelligence; and the tongue could be advanced and withdrawn with facility, and regained its redness. On the following day, there was a little delirium, after which the pulse fell to 90, the signs of vitality acquired strength, and at the end of a week the woman left the hospital restored to health. Cases of successful transfusion are so rare, that it is not surprising the one here recorded should have excited attention among our physiologists.
People inclined to corpulence may profit by M. Dancel's observations on the development of fat. He says, that some of his patients, whose obesity was a constant inconvenience and cause of disease, 'lost very notably of their embonpoint by a change in their alimentary regimenabstaining almost entirely from vegetables, feculent substances,
diminishing their quantity of drink, and increasing, when necessary, their portion of meat.' On another, subject, M. Guérin Méneville believes he has found a new cochineal insect (Coccus fabæ ) on the common bean, which grows wild in the south of France, and in such abundance, that a considerable quantity may be collected in a short time. The yield of colouring matter is of such amount, that a project is talked of for cultivating the plant extensively.
A communication has been made to the Geological Society at Paris by M. de Hauslab, on a subject which has from time to time occupied the thoughts of those who study the physique of the planet on which we livenamely, the origin of the present state of our globe, and its crystal-like cleavage. After a few preliminary remarks about mountains, rocks, dikes and their line of direction, he shews that the globe presents the form approximately of a great octahedron (eight-sided figure); and further, that the three axial planes which such a form necessitates, may be described by existing circles round the earth: the first being Himalaya and Chimborazo; starting from Cape Finisterre, passing to India, Borneo, the eastern range of Australia, New Zealand, across to South America, Caracas, the Azores, and so round to Finisterre. The second runs in the opposite direction; includes the Andes, Rocky Mountains, crosses Behring's Strait to Siberia, thence to the Altaï, Hindostan, Madagascar, Cape Colony, and ending again at the Andes of Brazil. The third, which cuts the two former at right angles, proceeds from the Alps, traverses the Mediterranean by Corsica and Sardinia to the mountains of Fezzan, through Central Africa to the Cape, on to Kerguelen's Land, Blue Mountains of Australia, Spitzbergen, Scandinavia, and completing itself in the Alps, from whence it started. These circles shew the limits of the faces of the huge crystal, and may be divided into others, comprising forty-eight in the whole. The views thus set forth exhibit much ingenuity; and when we consider that metals crystallise in various forms, and native iron in the octahedral, there is much to be said in their favour.
We shall probably not be long before hearing of another gold field, for Dr Barth writes from the interior of Africa, that grains of the precious metal have been found in two rivers which flow into Lake Tchad, and that the mountains in the neighbourhood abound with it. Should the first discovery be verified by further explorations, gold will be more abundant than it now promises to be, and Africa perhaps the richest source of supply. Apropos of this continent, a French traveller is about to prove from the results of a journey from the Cape towards the equator, that the Carthaginian discoveries had been pushed much further towards the south than is commonly supposed.
Agassiz, who, as you know, has become a citizen of the United States, has had the Cuvierian prize awarded to him for his great work on fossil fishesan honour approved by every lover of science. This distinguished writer says, in his latest publications on fossil zoology, that the number of fossil fishes distributed over the globe is more than 25,000 species; of mammifera, over 3000; reptiles, over 4000; shells, more than 40,000; numbers which greatly exceed all former calculation. Of other American items, there is one worthy the notice of apiarians: some emigrants who sailed from Boston wished to convey a hive of bees to the Sandwich Islands, where the industrious insects have not as yet been introduced; all went well until the vessel reached the tropics, and there the heat was so great as to melt the wax of the combs, and consequently to destroy the bees.