Miscellany. [Volume: 2, Issue: 2, September, 1860, pp. 129-136]

PERISCOPE OF MEDICAL AND GENERAL SCIENCE.

131

manner as perspiration on the skin. It seems probable that some similar
process takes place in all glands during the period of rest. Saliva, for
instance, when it begins to flow, contains a considerable proportion of
epithelium at first; but the liquid soon becomes transparent, and contains
only a few epithelial cells."
The Half- Yearly Abstract gives, upon the authority of the Archives
Gen. de Med., the following resume of DR. MAINGAULT'S observations on
diphtheritic paralysis:-" The numerous facts collected in this memoir
show very clearly that there is a variety of paralysis supervening
upon diphtheria, which deserves the name of diphtheritic paralysis.
This affection may be local paralysis of the velum palati or pharynx.
Frequently, also, it fixes upon distant parts; sometimes upon the lower
limbs exclusively (paraplegia), sometimes upon the limbs and trunk generally, sometimes upon the eye singly. Its development may be sudden or
progressive. There is no necessary connection between the severity of
the diphtheritic affection and the extent and gravity of the paralysis, for
in some cases profound and extensive paralysis has supervened upon a
most benignant form of diphtheria. Nor can albuminuria be looked upon
as the determining cause of the paralysis, for in some cases the urine was
perfectly free from albumen. As yet, also, the scalpel has failed to detect
anything abnormal in the condition of the nervous centres. Where the
affection is general, the termination may be fatal: but the usual course is
for the paralytic symptoms to pass off in a period varying from two to
eight months."
In the course of an interesting paper on craniology and the different collections of skulls, (Brit. and For. Med.-Chir. Bev., July, 1860,) it is stated
that: "In 1857, DR. GEORGE WILLIAMSON, of the Museum of the Army
Medical Department, in two articles in the Dublin Quarterly Journal of
Medical Science, gave a lengthened enumeration and description of the
majority of the 601 human crania and skeletons preserved in the museum
at Fort Pitt. His arrangement was a new and peculiar one. He adopted
four classes: 1, oval-shaped skulls; 2, skulls with projecting alveolar
processes, or with the nasal bones on the same plane; 3, skulls with very
prominent superciliary ridges; and 4, skulls with broad and flat faces. In
this descriptive catalogue, for so it may be considered, the author directed
special attention to a novel feature of distinction among human races,
viz., the form of the anterior nasal orifice. This differs remarkably in the
different families of man, dependently upon the differing combinations of
the forms and inclinations of the superior maxillary, nasal, and other
bones. Dr. Williamson has been at considerable pains to study and to
illustrate these diversities by a number of figures. Although apparently
trivial in itself, the observation is a valid one, and indicates the universal
diffusion of that diversity which marks every feature in the various races
of man."
The importance of a proper appreciation of the conservative power of
the living organism is so great, that we risk the imputation of repetition
in presenting the following from a report of the proceedings of the British
Association for the Advancement of Science, in the Lancet, of July 7.
"M. OLLIER, of Lyons, exhibited a series of specimens illustrating the Artificial Production of Bone and Osseous Grafts. In one specimen the radius
had been wholly removed, leaving the periosteum entire, and the bone
was reproduced. In a similar experiment, with the removal of the peri