pupils were slightly dilated; skin clammy and disagreeably cool, with languid, thready, and rapid pulse; there appeared but slender hopes for the little sufferer. Ten drops water of ammonia, diluted, was administered, this was repeated,-also wine given in small quantities. The foot having become much swollen and discoloured, partly no doubt from the tightness of the ligature, was relieved by free scarification with a lancet. The threatening symptoms abated in fifteen minutes; the child gradually recovered from the state of lethargy; warm cataplasms were applied to the foot; the parts healed kindly; and in the course of a short time he was as well as ever. My friend Dr Hunter of the 12th Lancers, was then my assistant, and saw this interesting case. ARTICLE III.-On the Bite of one of the Lizard Tribe. By D. C. BELL, Esq., Superintending Surgeon, Bombay Establishment. (Communicated by Professor Sir George Ballingall.) (Copy of Letters in Reply to a Circular of the Superintending Surgeon, North-West Division of Guzerat, on the Effects of the Bite of one of the Lizard Tribe, called by the natives" Chundun Goo," supposed to be a species of Monitor.) In January 1834, I was superintending some operations in boring for water, at the village of Roopaul, in the Dholka Pergunnah; and was one morning called to see a sepoy, who was attached to me as a guard, as they reported he was dead. The person mentioned was of the Mahometan caste, aged about 45 years, of a weakly and rather debauched appearance, addicted to opium. He was sleeping on a cot in the open air, and under some nimb trees. The cots of four other sepoys were close to the one he slept on. The state I saw him in was discovered by one of the sepoys endeavouring to awake him, telling him it was time to get up. He was to all appearance quite dead, body cold, eyelids closed, but when opened, the eye appeared quite fixed, as in death, mouth slightly open, no pulse at the wrist, and scarcely any pulsation at the heart. Several charms had been tried to restore him to life, but without any effect, when a native Byragee (religious mendicant), who lived in the village, was sent for. On his examining the sepoy, he requested me to give him some pounded red and black pepper; on getting which he had the man raised to a sitting posture, and, after saying some prayers over some water, he opened the eyelids, and put in A specimen of this animal was presented to Professor Jameson of Edinburgh, a large quantity of the red and black pepper, repeating some words at the same time. He then took some of the water, and poured it into his hands, which he dashed in the man's face. This was repeated several times, when the sepoy gave signs of returning to his senses, and shortly opened his eyes. On being questioned, he stated, that he got up about daylight to go to the jungle, and while out had observed a Chundun Goo near where he sat down, and had felt something like a thorn prick his foot, but took no notice of it. On getting back to his cot, he lay down to sleep again; and from that time till he was brought to his senses, he had no recollection of anything. On examining his foot, there appeared two small wounds on his heel, as from the bite of some animal. He was carried to his house at Dholka on a cot, and was many days before he got the use of the leg in which the bite was observed. P. S.-It was the opinion of the people, from the symptoms, that it was the bite of the Chundun Goo, before they knew the man had seen one. AMEDABAD, August 3, 1839. (Signed) GEORGE FULLJAMES, 2. The same day that I received your paper (the above case), a very intelligent native called on me; and, asking him about the animal, he described the effects of its bite precisely as given in Captain Fulljames's case; he said that its bite was more rapidly fatal than the bite of most snakes; and I find that all intelligent natives give the same account of the reptile; so that, although at first sceptical as to its being poisonous at all, I am no longer so. (Signed) THOMAS ROBSON, Surgeon, 6th Regt. N. I. DEESA, 9th September 1839. 3. During the time I was civil surgeon at Kaira (Guzerat), I saw a number of the animals in question, and killed several. They are generally to be found in trees, particularly the nimb, and also in the roofs of old houses. The natives appear to be more afraid of them than the most poisonous snakes, and assert that they will spring upon any person who may be passing near them, and that the bite is followed by almost instant death. Having examined the mouth of three Chundun Goos of the largest size with a magnifying glass, and not being able to detect the presence of poison fangs, I was disinclined to believe this; but one evening I was called to see a woman, living in the Wagaseeree (about 500 yards from my own house,) who was said to have been bitten by a Chundun Goo. My horse being ready saddled at the door, I reached the woman's house within five minutes from the infliction of the bite, but by the time I arrived there, she was dead. This occurred in 1832. VOL. FOR 1842, NO. III. 2 L Very shortly afterwards, a Coombie (cultivator) residing at Hureeala (about three-quarters of a mile from my house) was also bitten, and, although I was almost instantly on the spot. I found him also dead. ARTICLE IV.-Account of a Child born about the end of the fifth month, which lived for six days. By JOHN COCHRANE, M.D., and Surgeon, Edinburgh. The following case, imperfect though the details be, seems so interesting, both in a physiological and medico-legal point of view, that I think it deserves to be placed on record in the MONTHLY JOURNAL. In the course of last month, I attended a Mrs B., who was delivered of a male infant about the end of the fifth month of gestation. The child was born on the morning of the 19th, and seemed to be doing well till the night of the 25th, when he died. He thus completed nearly six days, during which he passed the urine and feces in a natural way, and seemed likely to thrive as well as a child come to the full time. The testes had not descended. The weight was only two pounds and eight ounces; the length of the body was only 14 inches; the circumference of the chest was nine inches; the length from the vertex to the point of the nose six inches; and the occipito-frontal circumference eight inches. Considering the very small weight of the body, it is certainly remarkable that the child lived so long as he did. I was most anxious to have been permitted to make an anatomical inspection of the body, but could not procure the consent of the parents. EDINBURGH, November 18, 1841. ARTICLE V.Observations upon a particular point in the Physiology of Death. By FRANCIS THOMAS RICHARDSON, M.D. Edin. "There are stranger things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy."-HAMLET. To become, as an individual who has of late been very much in the mouths of the public expresses.it, "a damp, moist, un pleasant body," is very far from consonant with the feelings of the majority of humanity. There is an increasing opinion that "This world is a sweet little world of delight," and a growing reluctance to pass that "bourne from which no traveller returns." No one feels a greater curiosity than can be hazarded with a due respect to his own personal safety, to enter upon an experimental investigation into the arcana of that undiscovered country-that "terra incognita," the route to which is described as going "we know not whither." Burke said, "the age of chivalry is o'er;" he would have been perfectly correct had he pronounced that of martyrdom to be so likewise. Individuals, it is true, with a reckless disregard to their own comfort, to propriety, and to the retention, in a becoming manner, of the correct appearance of the "human face divine," do occasionally make bodies of themselves. Into the causes of this extraordinary taste we do not intend to inquire: Some affirm that it depends upon the weather, and so the common continental appellation of November is, the month in which Englishmen cut their throats, imagining, doubtless, that this sad and gloomy season "accords with their souls' sadness;" but this, evidently, is a mistake, more suicides happening in the months of summer than at any other period during the year. Others attribute this inclination to kick the bucket, or, in more elegant language, to put themselves out of the pail of society, to the faculty of imitation, but whatever the cause of it may be, the opinion society entertains of the act is pretty evident, from its considering every such case of felo de se to be the act of a madman. We were then perfectly correct when we affirmed, that the age of martyrdom had passed, and that of respirators, ventilating gossamers, and patent safeties out-stripping in number the nights of the Arabian tales to have arrived. Inventions calculated to retard that fatal period which shall terminate the life of every one-that tick in the life of eternity-and with the same praiseworthy intentions, we trust the following remarks will receive their due meed of approbation, as they are intended to correct a vulgar fallacy, and to exhibit the truth of the seeming paradox, that when a person is said to be dead, he is not so in reality, but continues possessed of vitality for some time longer. In pursuance of this same subject of death, it will be necessary to enter into a slight investigation of what life really is. There have been two opinions entertained amongst the learned upon the nature of life: the one that it is an entity, either material or immaterial, which, entering certain aggregations of matter, regulates as well their organization, as all the other phenomena which they exhibit;-the other, that it is merely an abstract term used to denote the sum of those functions of organized beings which are fundamental, viz., respiration, circulation, nutrition, &c. The latter appears to be the true one, since the existence of the vital principle, as an entity, cannot be established, not to mention its incompetency to effect the phenomena attributed to it, even had its existence been proved. In stating this, however, we are aware we advance a position not generally held by the majority of individuals. In recording a sudden death, the favourite expression of the newspapers is, that the vital spark had fled that scintillation of the divinity-the “divinæ particulum auræ." And the sudden cessation of life, the instantaneous change from activity and vigour to the rigidity and quiescence of that sleep" which knows no breaking." is certainly a sufficient apology for imagining that something which was previously there has departed ;-that this immediate change must be the result of the departure of some powerful substantial entity, which was the ruling principle, the spring of action, and the regulator of the human economy. But common though the opinion may be, we have had, and still have, too many proofs of the fallacy of common opinions, and the energy with which these opinions are retained grown venerable by years, and respected through the lapse of time, to hesitate for a moment in rejecting any assertion merely from its novelty and opposition to our preconceived ideas. We affirm, then, the true nature of life to be, that it is the sum of the functions; not the result of organization, but the result of vitality. Vitality is a property of organized matter, which, when acted upon by particular stimuli under favourable circumstances, gives rise to those properties or functions in the sum of which life consists, in the same manner that the combustibility of a candle does not depend upon any unseen entity of combustion existing in the candle, but is merely a property of a certain form of matter, which exhibits itself when exposed to the influence of oxygen and other substances, under favourable circumstances. And there is nothing improbable in this idea, for the endowment of a candle with the property which it possesses, is quite as wonderful and incomprehensible, as the impression upon certain other forms of matter of the property of vitality. And by this simple explanation of the subject, we can account for the phenomena of life in the different classes of animated nature, by one common and universal law, applicable at once as well to the highest as to the lowest, to the simplest as to the most complex of living substances, and thus avoid the absurdity of believing the invisible animalcule, and the mould of a stagnant pool, to exist merely in consequence of the presence of some invisible entity in their interiors. Such being the view we have taken of life, we now proceed to observe, that when a person is said to be dead in common parlance, he is not so in reality; he is still possessed of vitality, as will be presently shown. But if this vitality, this "aptitude à |