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SINGULAR GALVANIC EXPERIMENTS.

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whether he was not Professor | pal nerve, which leads immediately Junker, of Halle? and, being an- to some great limb or muscle; when swered in the affirmative, he re- this is done, let that part of the quested, in an earnest manner, his company to dinner. The professor consented. Having reached the merchant's house, he was shown into an elegant apartment, where he founda beautiful wife, and two fine healthy children; but he could scarcely suppress his astonishment at meeting so cordial a reception from a family, with whom he thought he was entirely unacquainted.

nerve which is exposed, and which is farthest from the limb or muscle, be brought into contact with a piece of zinc. While in this state, let the zinc be touched by a piece of silver, while another part of the silver touches the naked nerve, if not dry, or the muscle to which it leads, whether dry or not. In this state, violent contractions will be produced in the limb or muscle, but After dinner, the merchant, tak-not in any muscle on the other side ing him into his counting-room, of the zinc. said, "You do not recollect me?". Among the numerous experi"Not at all." 66 But I will recol- ments which have lately been made, lect you, and never shall your fea- very few have been more singular tures be effaced from my remem- in their effects than those which brance: you are my benefactor: I were produced by Dr. Ure, in Glasam the person who came to life in gow, on the body of a man named your closet, and to whom you paid Clydesdale, who had been executed so much attention. On parting for murder. These effects were from you, I took the road to Hol- produced by a voltaic battery of land; I wrote a good hand; was 270 pair of four-inch plates, of tolerably good at accounts; my which the results were terrible. figure was somewhat interesting, In the first experiment, on moving and I soon obtained employment the rod from the thigh to the heel, as a merchant's clerk. My good the leg was thrown forward with conduct, and my zeal for the inte- so much violence as nearly to overrests of my patron, procured me turn one of the assistants. In the his confidence, and his daughter's second experiment, the rod was aplove. On his retiring from busi-plied to the phrenic nerve in the ness I succeeded him, and became neck, when laborious breathing his son-in-law. But for you, how- commenced; the chest heaved and ever, I should not have lived to experience all these enjoyments. Henceforth, look upon my house, my fortune, and myself, as at your disposal." Those who possess the smallest portion of sensibility can easily represent to themselves the feelings of Junker.

SINGULAR GALVANIC EXPERIMENTS.

The galvanic experiments which have hitherto been made by philosophers upon animal bodies, may be reduced nearly to a single point; the statement of which will suffice to give the reader a general idea of the subject. Lay bare any princi

fell; the belly was protruded and collapsed with the relaxing and retiring diaphragm; and it was thought that nothing but the loss of blood prevented pulsation from being restored. In the third experiment, the supra-orbital nerve was touched, when the muscles of the face were thrown into frightful actions and contortions. The scene was hideous, and many spectators left the room; and one gentleman nearly fainted, either from terror, or from the momentary sickness which the scene occasioned. In the fourth experiment, from meeting the electric power, from the spinal

marrow to the elbow, the fingers were put in motion, and the arm was agitated in such a manner, that it seemed to point to, some spectators, who were dreadfully terrified, from an apprehension that the body was actually coming to life. From these experiments Dr. Ure seemed to be of opinion, that had not incisions been made in the blood-vessels of the neck, and the spinal marrow been lacerated, the body of the criminal might have been restored to life.

HARVEY'S EXAMINATION OF THE

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this young nobleman knew not that we touched the heart."

DR. JOHN REID-HIS HEROISM. The late Dr. Reid was afflicted with cancer in the tongue, which ultimately extended to the throat, causing his death. He was twice operated upon, and directed the surgeon's knife on both occasions, the parts affected being those on which he had thrown fresh light by his physiological researches. In his memoir by Dr. George Wilson, an admirable piece of scientific and religious biography, the following particulars are given :- "There were unusual elements of piety in Dr. Reid's case. The physician was for the time the patient; the public speaker was struck inarticulate and dumb; and it was a surgeon who was under the knife of the surgeons. But this was by no means all. The surgeons were the attached friends of the patient. They did not gather round him, with cold professional eye, to discharge an official duty.

In the time of Charles I., a young nobleman of the Montgomery family had an abscess in the side of his chest, in consequence of a fall. The wound healed, but an opening was left in his side of such a size that the heart and lungs were still visible, and could be handled. On the return of the young man from his travels, the King heard of the circumstance, and requested Dr. Harvey to examine his heart. The Fellow-lecturers, fellow-students, or following is Harvey's own account fellow-scholars, and old playmates, of the examination:-"When I had they all were, and now they were paid my respects to this young assembled to perform, with grieved nobleman and conveyed to him the hearts, a cruel and painful task. King's request, he made no con- For doctors so circumstanced there cealment, but exposed the left side is no sympathy in the unprofessional of his breast, where I saw a cavity public heart. The surgeon who can into which I could introduce my lift his knife upon his friend, is finger and thumb. Astonished with looked upon as little better than the novelty, again and again I ex- an assassin in spirit. Yet among plored the wound, and, first mar- the medical men who were with Dr. velling at the extraordinary nature Reid on that painful day, were of the case, I set about the exami-hearts as tender, affectionate, and nation of the heart. Taking it in gentle, as we need wish or may hope one hand, and placing the finger of to find. Sorely reluctant had they the other on the pulse of the wrist, been to undertake the unwelcome I satisfied myself that it was indeed duty to which they were now called. the heart which I grasped. I then Only the conviction that there was brought him to the King, that he no other way of serving him whom might behold and touch so extraor- they loved so deeply, gave them dinary a thing, and that he might courage to go on; and no one underperceive, as I did, that unless when stood this better than he who was we touched the outer skin, or when the object of all this sympathy. he saw our fingers in the cavity,On his side there was corresponding

ASTRONOMERS AND ASTRONOMY.

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courage, and he showed entire sub-posely withheld, that the sufferer, mission to their guidance. The with every sensation and faculty operation he had to undergo was alive, might assist, and literally not one which admitted of allevia- become an operator upon himself." tion of its pains by the administra-The wound had scarcely healed, tion of anesthetics. It required when the disease returned, and not merely endurance, but firmness another operation was performed; and active fortitude; and the patient on this occasion under the effects was expected to be something more of chloroform. When he partially than that negative term implies. awoke from the state of insensibility Nor was the expectation disap- thus induced, his resolute firmness pointed. His face wore even a was strangely mingled with gleams smile, as before putting himself of his native humour. He rememin Mr. Fergusson's hands he re-bered afterwards that whilst his cognized an old school-fellow among friends were anxiously applying a the non-medical attendants, and saluted him with a sobriquet of the play-ground. Throughout the operation he rendered every assistance, by deliberate acts implying real heroism. Chloroform was pur

ligature to a divided artery, he was seized with a strong desire to let it "spout" on the white neckcloth of one of them. This genial man and ingenious physiologist, sank under a third recurrence of the fatal disease,

ASTRONOMERS AND ASTRONOMY.

SIR ISAAC NEWTON AND THE ROYAL

SOCIETY.

The communications which Newton made to the Society, excited the deepest interest in every part of

scope, the germ of the colossal instruments of Herschel and Lord Rosse, was deemed one of the wonders of the age.-(Brewster, North British Review.)

In 1671, Mr. Isaac Newton, Pro-Europe. His little reflecting telefessor of Mathematics at Cambridge, was proposed as a Fellow of the Royal Society by Seth Ward, Bishop of Sarum. Newton, then in his thirtieth year, had made several of his greatest discoveries. He had discovered the different refrangibility of light. He had invented the reflecting telescope. He had deduced the law of gravity from Kepler's theorem; and he had discovered the method of fluxions. When he heard of his being proposed as a Fellow, he expressed to Oldenburg, the secretary, his hope that he would be elected, and added, that "he would endeavour to testify his gratitude by communicating what his poor and solitary endeavours could effect towards the promoting their philosophical design."

NEWTON'S METHODS. The doctrine of universal gravitation is one of the greatest of human discoveries. The following remarks by Mr. Whewell tend to enhance the admiration and wonder with which the immortal discoverer will always be regarded. "No one for sixty years after the publication of the Principia, and, with Newton's methods, no one up to the present day, has added anything of any value to his deductions. We know that he calculated all the principal lunar inequalities; in

many of the cases he has given us his processes, in others only his results. But who has presented in his beautiful geometry, or deduced from his simple principles, any of the inequalities which he left untouched? The ponderous instrument of synthesis, so effective in his hand, has never since been grasped by one who could use it for such purposes; and we gaze at it with admiring curiosity, as on some gigantic implement of war, which stands idle among the memorials of ancient days, and makes us wonder what manner of man he was who could wield as a weapon what we can hardly lift as a burden."

studying the refraction of light upon thin plates, a phenomenon which is beautifully exhibited upon the surface of a common soap-bubble.” This anecdote serves as an excellent moral not to ridicule what we do not understand, but gently and industriously to gather wisdom from every circumstance around us.

JOHN KEPLER-HIS ENTHUSIASM.

When John Kepler discovered, after seventeen years of incessant investigation, the third of his laws, namely, that relating to the connection between the periodic times and the distances of the planets, his delight knew no bounds. "Nothing holds me," says he; “I will indulge in my sacred fury; I will triumph over mankind by the honest confession, that I have stolen the golden vases of the Egyptians, to build up a tabernacle for my God, far away from the confines of Egypt. If you forgive me, I rejoice; if you are angry, I can bear it. The die

read either now or by posterity,— I care not which. It may well wait a century for a reader, as God has waited six thousand years for

LALANDE.

SIR ISAAC NEWTON'S EXPERIMENTS. When Sir Isaac Newton changed his residence, and went to live in Leicester Place, his next-door neighbour was a widow lady, who was much puzzled by the little she had observed of the philosopher. One of the Fellows of the Royal Society of London called upon her one day, is cast; the book is written, to be when, among other domestic news, she mentioned that some one had come to reside in the adjoining house, who she felt certain was a poor crazy gentleman, "because," an observer.” she continued, "he diverts himself in the oddest ways imaginable. Every morning, when the sun shines Lalande, the French astronomer, so brightly that we are obliged to when the Revolution broke out, draw the window-blinds, he takes only paid the more attention to the his seat in front of a tub of soap-revolutions of the heavenly bodies; suds, and occupies himself for hours and when he found, at the end, blowing soap-bubbles through a that he had escaped the fury of common clay pipe, and intently Robespierre and his fellow-ruffians, watches them till they burst. He he gratefully remarked, "I may is doubtless now at his favourite thank my stars for it." amusement," she added; "do come and look at him." The gentleman smiled, and then went up stairs, The last telescopic observations when, after looking through the of Galileo resulted in the discovery window into the adjoining yard, he of the diurnal libration of the moon. turned round and said, "My dear Although his right eye had for some madam, the person whom you sup-years lost its power (says Sir David pose to be a poor lunatic is no other Brewster), yet his general vision than the great Sir Isaac Newton,' was sufficiently perfect to enable

GALILEO'S BLINDNESS.

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him to carry on his usual researches. Galileo became totally blind. This In 1636, however, this affection of sudden and severe calamity had the eye became more serious; and, almost overwhelmed Galileo and in 1637, his left eye was attacked his friends. In writing to a correswith the same disease. His medi- pondent he exclaims, "Alas! your cal friends at first supposed that dear friend and servant has become cataracts were formed in the crys- totally and irreparably blind. These talline lens, and anticipated a cure heavens, this earth, this universe, from the operation of couching. which by wonderful observation Í These hopes were fallacious. The had enlarged a thousand times bedisease turned out to be in the yond the belief of past ages, are cornea, and every attempt to restore henceforth shrunk into the narrow its transparency was fruitless. In a space which I occupy myself. So few months the white cloud covered it pleases God; it shall, therefore, the whole aperture of the pupil, and please me also."

AUTHORS.
PRECOCITY.

DERMODY, CHATTERTON, ETC.

Cowley received the applauses of the great at eleven, Pope at twelve, and Milton at sixteen. The meed of distinguished praise, therefore, cannot be denied this wonderful boy [Dermody], when it is related that at ten years old he had written as much genuine poetry as either of these great men had produced at nearly double that age. Reared in the metropolis of a great nation, where genius finds many excitements, their early effusions were blazoned forth with admiration. different at this time was the fate of our extraordinary youth; with no pattern of prudence before his eyes, no stimulus to exertion, no protecting hand to cherish the opening bud of genius; but, like the unhappy Chatterton, slumbering in obscurity, neglected and unknown. -(Life by Raymond.)

Very

Dermody died at the age of twenty-seven years and six months. In the cast of his mind he resembled the unfortunate Chatterton, and in his propensities the eccentric Sa

vage, but in precocity of talent and of classical information, excelled both them and every other rival, having in the first fourteen years of his life acquired a competent knowledge of the Greek, the Latin, the French, and Italian languages, and a little of the Spanish. Like Savage, he would participate in the pleasures of the lowest company, but had not the same eagerness after money, nor the same effrontery in demanding it of his friends. And notwithstanding Dermody's insatiate desire for liquor kept him in perpetual poverty, yet his applications (though full of lamentations) were never graded by meanness or fulsome adulation; nor did ingratitude, in his worst excesses, ever sully his character through life.... Had he qualified those errors which hurt only himself; had his ambition kept pace with the encouragement which he received; had he studied and pursued moral with the same ardour as poetical; had his regard for character and decorum equalled his poverty and his love of dissipation; he might have lived to be the ad

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