Scientific Serials

Abstract

THE current number of the Quarterly Journal of Microscopic Science contains several articles of interest, most being condensed accounts of longer papers from British and foreign sources. The first memoir is by Mr. Francis Darwin, entitled “Contributions to the Anatomy of the Sympathetic Ganglia of the Bladder in their Relation to the Vascular System.” The author's object is to show that there is a reflex mechanism effected by peripheral ganglion cells, through which the coats of the arteries are placed under nervous control, independent of the central nervous system; so that the statement of Cohnheim to the contrary in his “New Researches on Inflammation ”does not hold. Mr. Darwin illustrates his views by two excellent plates, which demonstrate that in the bladder at least the ganglionic nerve fibre or fibres (for there are generally two) which accompany each small artery, send branches which are partly distributed to the coats of the vessel, and are partly lost on its outer covering. —This paper is followed by a further résumé of recent observations on the Gonidia question, by Mr. W. Archer, which commences with the adverse comments of Fries and J. Müller on Schweindener's peculiar theory respecting the relation borne by the gonidia to the lichen-thallus, and is followed by an abstract of the researches of Bornet in the same direction, but favourable to the parasitic hypothesis.—Mr. W. Hatchett Jackson proposes a new method for preserving magenta-stained microscopic sections which he has found successful. Magenta being a trianime, its triacid salts colourless, and nearly all of them soluble in most preservative solutions, it was desirable to obtain a stable mon-acid salt and a suitable preservative fluid. These conditions are fulfilled by employing as the staining agent the monotamnate of magenta, and as the preservative fluid syrup, with 3 or 4 per cent, of calcium chloride. Specimens prepared and mounted by this method have been kept for more than a year, the sugar making them very transparent.—A translation is given by Mr. Perceval Wright of part of Prof. Haeckel's now well-known Gastraea theory, the phylogenetic classification of the animal kingdom, and the homology of the germ lamina. The gastraea theory, which is very similar to one published shortly before it by Mr. E. Ray Lankester, divides the animal kingdom into two chief divisions, the Protozoa and the Metazoa, the former of which never form germ laminae, never possess a true intestinal canal, and, especially, never develop a differentiated tissue; whilst the latter always form two primary germ laminae, always possess a true intestinal canal, and always develope differentiated tissues. The Metazoa are further divisible into the Zoophyta (or Coelenterata) and the Bilateria (or bilaterally symmetrical animals).—The last article in the number is an account of Dr. Cunningham's report on the microscopical examination of air, from experiments prosecuted at Calcutta, undertaken with the view of throwing light on the origin of cholera and other eastern epidemics.