vasomotor system and also upon the nervous control of the production of heat. The dilatation of the cutaneous vessels, the increased perspiration and the cooling thereby produced are well known. The temperature of the subject may be lowered although he himself feels warmer; this is due to the warm blood which flushes the cutaneous nerves where the sensations of temperature arise. In large doses alcohol paralyses the nervous control of temperature. The man who is " dead drunk " resembles a coldblooded animal; exposure to cold produces not an increase but a decrease in combustion and his temperature steadily fall. The lowest temperatures recorded in men, who have recovered, appear in drunkards who have been exposed to cold.Anaesthetics rapidly paralyse the nervous regulation of temperature. The disturbance in temperature, be it a fall or a rise, which is seen after many surgical operations, appears to be largely due to this cause. The convenient explanation of " shock " needs further definition. The anaesthetized patient cannot regulate his temperature. The cases of hyperpyrexia scattered throughout medical literature are exceedingly numerous. Some of the observations appear to be unreliable, owing to defects in the thermometer or to fraud on the part of the patient. The range above the normal temperature is less extensive than that below, and a very high temperature is rapidly followed by death, whereas a very low temperature is compatible with life for a relatively long period. This would be expected on general physiological grounds, for some mammals have, under the natural conditions of hibernation, a temperature only five or six degrees above the freezing point.The highest records in patients who have recovered appear to be 450 to 460 (1130 to 114.80 F.), but in these cases the high temperature appears to have been maintained for a very short time. REFERENCES.'Edwards, De l'lnfluence des Agens Physiques sur la Vie,

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(With Plate IV, containing Figs. 1-13) FROM early times epidemics of ergotism have occurred in Europe on a large scale, especially in France and Germany, and have been very fully described by a host of writers. There are two distinct types, entirely different in their symptoms, the gangrenous, and the convulsive, spasmodic, or ntervous, and, broadly speaking, while the former has been observed almost exclusively in France, the latter has been mostly confined to Germany. This sharp geographical distribution west and east of the Rhine has been the subject of frequent comment and much speculation, but hitherto no conclusive explanation has been forthcoming. It was recognised towards the end of the seventeenth century that the epidemic outbreaks resulted from the consumption of ergotised rye, and that they followed on bad seasons with poor harvests, a general scarcity of other foods, and consequent extreme poverty and hardship. Also, it is now definitely determined that gangrenous ergotism is due to the action chiefly of ergotoxine, an alkaloid elaborated in the rye grain by a fungus, the Claviceps purpurea, and which among its other actions brings about such vigorous and prolonged constriction of the arterioles that clotting and thrombosis take place. The consequent blocking of the blood stream leads to dry gangrene of the extremities and of other parts where the collateral circulation is not sufficient to maintain nutrition. Gangrenous ergotism can be very readily produced in the barn-door fowl and pig by feeding on ergotised rye, but other laboratory animals, such as the dog, cat, rabbit and guinea-pig, are extremely insusceptible. Trousseau' states that very large quantities of ergotised rye have to be consumed before the disease develops in man, and I failed to produce it in monkeys.Exp. 1. A bonnet monkey was fed for one month on cakes made of 75 per cent. oatmeal and 25 per cent. ergot lightly baked on a girdle. The monkey received no other food except fresh fruit daily, and the ergot was proved to be of normal physiological activity. At the end of a month the ergot was increased to 50 per cent., and it lived on this for three months longer in good health.Exp. 2. Two bonnet monkeys were similarly fed for two months on cakes made entirely with ergotised rye (Ergot B.P.). As no symptoms of any kind developed, the experiment was stopped.The cause of convulsive ergotism has, however, remained unexplained. By some investigators it has been attributed to specific poisons formed in the rye grain by Claviceps, by some to the absence of vitamins, and by others to differ-' Traite' de Therapeutique, 1841.

I15 view of the great and constantly-Increasing pressure on our spac, we would urgently request correspondents and authors of communications to assist us in endeavouring to place their views before our readers by condensing their communications to the utmost extent. THE TREATMENT OF CHLOROSIS BY IRON AND SOME OTHER DRUGS.

SINCE Liebig in 1842 developed his famous theory of the source of muscular energy, the influence of muscular work on the metabolism has arrested the attention of many physiologists, and much has been recorded on the subject. From previous observations, we now know that while the principal source of energy is in the non-nitrogenous constituents of the body, the nitrogenous constituents are always decomposed to a greater or less extent if the work is at all excessive. The object of the present research is to attempt to elucidate the source of the proteid material decomposed after muscular work, and generally reinvestigate the subject. The excretion of uric acid and allied nitrogenous bodies and of phosphoric acid received special attention, for an indication of the source of the proteid decomposed may be found in the influence of muscular work on these excretions.Muscular tissue is rich in the native proteid, e.g. globulin, but is poor in nucleo proteids, and consequently, were it found that the increased excretion of nitrogen were accompanied by increased excretion of uric acid and allied bodies, along with an increased excretion of phosphoric acid, substances derived from the decomposition of the nuclein element of nucleo proteids, it would indicate that not muscle but some other tissue supplied the proteid. It is an established fact that in hunger the proteid of one tissue can be called on to supply the wants of another2, and it is of interest to know whether such an