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HASSALL'S MICROSCOPIC ANATOMY.

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very advantageous to remain in Egypt till the most favourable period of the year arrives for their return home."

We need scarcely say that there are many regions of the earth where that blessing of blessings, health is much more likely to be found than in Egypt.

If our space had permitted, we should like to have extracted some of Sir James' excellent remarks on the importance of proper ventilation of rooms, in the treatment of many inaladies. This is a point that has hitherto been far too little attended to; and it is to be much desired that our author's sound advice will not be lost upon the public.

In conclusion we have again the pleasure of recommending Sir James' work as the guide-book to direct medical men in their selection of the proper climate, for those cases where a change of residence may be deemed advisable.

THE MICROSCOPIC ANATOMY OF THE HUMAN BODY, IN HEALTH AND DISEASE. Illustrated with numerous Drawings in colour. By Arthur Hill Hassall, Author of the British Freshwater Algæ, &c. London: Samuel Highley, 1846. Parts One and Two, 8vo.

THE author informs us that "this work is to be completed in about twelve monthly parts, each comprising forty-four pages of letter-press and three carefully executed plates in colour;" the price being 2s. 6d. each part. It is intended to embrace a systematic and copiously illustrated description of the various fluids and solids of the body, no structure or organ being omitted. A work of this nature, successfully completed, would at this particular time confer a real benefit on that large part of the profession, who are either engaged in the prosecution of minute anatomy or are interested in its progress. In the two parts that have already appeared, Mr. Hassall has considered the general characters of the lymph, the chyle, and the blood. As we shall have occasion in our next number to notice the valuable edition of Hewson's works, that has just been issued by the Sydenham Society, and in which the whole subject relating to these fluids has been ably discussed by the editor, Mr. Gulliver; and also the elaborate observations of Mr. Wharton Jones on the Development of the BloodCorpuscle contained in the Philosophical Transactions for 1846, we can only devote a small portion of our space to that division of the work which is before us.

We are happy to pronounce on the whole a favourable opinion of "the Microscopic Anatomy." It contains a concise but comprehensive account of the subjects on which the author has hitherto treated. The opinions of the most eminent observers, English and Continental, are given with impartiality, and occasional references are made to the writings of the olderm icroscopists, such as Malpighi, Leeuwenhoek, Della Torre, Hewson, and others; the reader is thus put in possession of what is an indispensable

requisite for arriving at the truth, the results, namely, of what has already been ascertained. Mr. Hassall does not, however, confine himself to anatomical details, but enters into such physiological questions as are more immediately connected with the ultimate structures; thus, after describing the blood-corpuscles, their uses are considered, and so with the lymphglobules, &c.

An opinion of the general style of the work may be formed by the author's remarks on the "Uses of the Red Corpuscles," in reference to Respiration.

"Observation has taught us the fact that the colour of the blood changes considerably, according as it is exposed to the influence of oxygen and carbonic acid gases, it becoming bright red under the influence of the former, and dark red, almost black, under that of the latter gas.

"Now the microscope has revealed to us the additional fact that the colouring matter of the blood resides within the red corpuscles; and hence we are led to infer that the changes of colour alluded to are accompanted by alterations in the condition of the colouring matter contained in those corpuscles.

Further, the alterations of colour which have been mentioned take place not only in blood withdrawn from the system, but also in that which still circulates in the living body, the vital fluid being exposed in the lungs to the iufluence of the oxygen contained in the atmosphere, and to carbonic acid in the capillary system of

vessels.

"But it is not merely a change of colour which the blood undergoes, or rather the coloured blood corpuscles undergo, on exposure to either of the gases particularised, but they also experience at the same time, as might easily be inferred, a positive change of condition, a portion of one or other of the gases to which the blood corpuscles are exposed being imbibed by them.

"That it is really the red corpuscles which absorb the oxygen, or the carbonic acid, as the case may be, admits of demonstration, and is proved by the fact that these gases lose but little volume when placed in contact with the liquor sanguinis, or serum of the blood.

"It is clear, then, that the coloured corpuscles are the seat in which these changes occur. Again, from the fact that the blood becomes bright red, or arterial on exposure to oxygen, as in the lungs, and dark red or venous on being submitted to the action of carbonic acid, as in the capillaries, it has been inferred that they are first carriers of oxygen from the lungs to all parts of the system, and second, vehicles for the conveyance of carbon back again to the lungs.

"This inference is correct as far as it goes, but it fails to explain why the imbibition of oxygen or carbonic acid gases should be accompanied by changes in the colour of the blood; aud it also fails to show why those gases themselves should be imbibed.-P. 36.

The author, after giving Liebig's theory as to the manner in which oxygen acts upon the protoxide of iron existing in the corpuscles of the venous blood, thus proceeds:

"Venous blood, then, exposed to the air gives out carbonic acid and absorbs oxygen, but arterial blood submitted to the same influence gives out oxygen, and acquires carbonic acid, the seat of these changes being the red corpuscles.

"It will be seen, on reflection, that according to the views just propounded, the surplus amount of oxygen which exists in the peroxide becomes disengaged in the reduction of that oxide to the state of protoxide; during circulation in the capillaries, this surplus is chiefly expended in the elaboration of the different secretions which are continually being formed in the various organs of the body. Such is the corpuscular theory of respiration.”—P. 37.

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The plates representing the various classes of corpuscles found in the blood, are characteristic, though the roughness of lithography is ill adapted for the more minute objects depicted, such as the rouleaux or piles of the red particles of man (Plate 1, fig. 4). The figure of the large discs of the Siren Lacertina, is excellent. The segment to illustrate the small arteries and veins of the frog's foot, with the intervening capillaries, parts it may be remarked en passant, which often puzzle the young microscopist to distinguish, might have been more happily chosen. We must also observe that the account which Mr. Hassall has given of the circulation in the chick is not very clear, the details appearing to us, if we rightly apprehend the description, to correspond rather to the umbilical vesicle and its blood-vessels (omphalo-mesenteric) than to the allantois with the umbilical arteries and veins. Notwithstanding these defects, the work of Mr. Hassall may be regarded as an useful guide to those who wish to become acquainted with the latest views upon microscopic anatomy; and on these grounds we have pleasure in recommending it to the notice of our readers.

CORRESPONDENCE RESPECTING THE QUARANTINE LAWS, &c. Presented to Parliament. Folio, pp. 48. 1846.j

We have alluded in a former page to the negociations that have of late years been carried on in France, as well as in our own country, upon this most important subject. The following are the particulars.

In 1838, a proposal was made by the French to the British government to promote the formation of a congress of delegates from the various European states having ports in the Mediterranean, for the purpose of agreeing upon some uniform system of Quarantine regulations to be adopted by and binding upon all. The British government at once acceded to the proposal. Austria also, which had been applied to by France about the same time, intimated her assent to the general principle and substance, only with some modification in the details. Difficulties, however, were subsequently started by the Austrian government, and the matter dropped entirely until the year 1843; when Lord Aberdeen again took it into consideration, and invited the French and Austrian governments to join with him in carrying out the proposal made by the former in 1838. France expressed her concurrence; but Austria considered that the establishment of any conference or congress, as proposed, would be premature until exact information was procured from competent medical men upon the following three points:

1. The minimum and maximum of the terms of quarantine to be fixed for persons.

2. The terms of quarantine necessary for goods and merchandise.

3. The best measures to be adopted for the disinfection of objects that are susceptible of contagion.

Prince Metternich intimated, at the same time, that a period of six months No. 106.

35

would probably be required to obtain this preparatory information, before the proposed congress of delegates could proceed satisfactorily to the determination of the various questions to be submitted to them.

We have already seen what steps the French government took to procure the most accurate instructions on the several points to which the prince referred.

The British government also, anxious that all just or alleged causes of delay might be removed, dispatched about the same time, viz: in October 1844, Sir William Pym, the Superintendent of Quarantine in this country, to visit all the ports in the Mediterranean where quarantine establishments and lazarettos existed, and to draw up a report upon them.

After describing the various places which he visited, and briefly mentioning the quarantine regulations that exist in each, Sir William makes the general remark that "the periods of Quarantine both as to the persons and merchandise may be very considerably reduced, particularly with reference to vessels arriving from places with clean bills of health, and in some instances altogether abolished, such as upon vessels from the Black Sea and those crossing the Atlantic; and that many of the unnecessary, vexatious, and expensive regulations, more particularly in the Italian States, may be discontinued."*"

As a matter of course, Sir William takes it for granted that the plague is contagious (communicable by contact, we presume), and that the contagion may be transmitted not only by the sick themselves but by various fomites; for we read that "it will be necessary to decide upon a list of articles of merchandise that are supposed to require purification, under the impression that they have been contaminated by persons having the plague, and the period of time required for their purification, together with the best means of doing so. To effect this, it may be necessary to examine practical men from different lazaret establishments, the superintendents of quarantine, captains of lazarets, and the medical men attached to these establishments." Some of these parties here named are not, we fear, most likely to come to very sober decisons upon the points under consideration; they are contagionists par metier.

the

The date of Sir Wm's letter, from which these extracts are taken, is June 1845. His next letter, dated September of the same year, is occupied with answers to the three questions or points of enquiry which Prince Metternich considered to require solution, before any step could be wisely taken to establish a congress. To the first on the list-as to the minimum and maximum of the terms of quarantine necessary for personshe gives the following reply:

"It appears to me that this question, and the one of greatest importance in this enquiry (the incubation of plague in the human system), was decided by the almost unanimous opinion of eighteen medical men in the Levant, by their replies to queries as published in the Parliamentary Papers; all of them, however much they differed in opinion upon the subject of contagion, agreed upon the short

*The health authorities of Palermo acknowledged to Sir William that they had run bars of iron through the fire, and had washed sugar-hogsheads with lime, for the purpose of destroying contagion! Very lately, a vessel from England was put under quarantine at Messina, because a report had appeared in the newspapers of a fever having prevailed at Glasgow !!

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EVIDENCE OF SIR WILLIAM PYM.

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period of incubation, viz., from three to ten days, with one exception, Dr. Floquin, of Smyrna, who put down fifteen days as the maximum; and the opinion of those medical men is confirmed by the inclosed valuable document. No. 1, being a return of 5240 individuals who had undergone the spoglio in the lazaret of Alexandria in the course of four years, out of which number forty-three were attacked with plague, and all of them before the eighth day after the operation of spoglio."

The answer to the second question contains an admission that is so truly important, in a commercial as well as in a medical point of view, that we request our reader's special attention to it:

"It is difficult to obtain any decided evidence upon this question, as during my Quarantine mission I could not ascertain that any one case of plague had been produced in any one of the various lazarets that I visited, in consequence of the manipulation of merchandise (the Italics are ours.-Rev.); and as in the principal lazarets in the Mediterranean (Marseilles and Malta) they have gradually abolished the serenos (probationary airings,) and reduced the period of depuration of goods with foul bills to twenty-one days, it does not appear that this period could be further reduced with such cargoes as cotton, if exposure to the atmosphere is to be considered necessary; as it will take the full time, according to the present practice of opening first one side of the bale for a certain period, then making up that side and opening the other for the same time, making in fact the quarantine upon cotton only ten days, which last period will be sufficient for small cargoes or parcels of merchandise, which can be at once opened and exposed to the air."

On the third point-as to the best means of disinfecting objects susceptible of contagion-Sir W. very naively remarks; "from what I have stated as to the non-appearance of plague in any one instance from the manipulation of merchandise in Lazarets, the present practice of exposing goods to the atmosphere for a certain period, appears to have been attended with success." He seems never to have even so much as dreamed of the possibility that the goods possessed no contagious property whatsoever; and yet, strange to say, he was aware, all the while, that not a single instance could be produced of the plague having been ever communicated by the manipulation of merchandise, in the lazarets which he visited! Such are the blinding effects of old deep-rooted prepossessions on the mental vision even of the most experienced observers.

The following brief notice of the vessels which have arrived at Malta with the plague on board, and have been duly depurated in the lazaretto there, since the island has been in possession of Great Britain (not including the plague of 1813), will be found to contain some interesting particulars, serving to illustrate and confirm several of the most important positions in the French Report. The details will not be deemed tedious or unneccessary by any who wish to understand thoroughly the important subject under consideration.

1819. A Maltese vessel, laden with oil and soap, arrived on the 27th of March from Susa, from which she had sailed on the 20th with a foul bill, in consequence of the plague prevailing there; from 15 to 18 persons were dying daily. The day before sailing, one of the crew had been taken with symptoms of fever. On the 21st, vomiting with delirium set in, and next day he died. The master stated that there were no external marks of plague during life, but that several petechiae were observed on the belly and thighs after death. Four of the remaining five persons of the