The American Journal of the Medical Sciences (Volume 74)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated.1877 Excerpt: ... strated that when a nerve going to a muscle is put upon another muscle, a contraction takes place in the first one when the second contracts. Dr. L. has not, however, by any method of proof whatever, shown the existence of any galvanic current, or its conduction from the heart to the diaphragm; and it seems improbable that the electricity generated in the heart could be conducted in sufficient quantity through such non-conducting media as the pericardium and oiled paper.as to cause contraction of the diaphragm. It will require more than the mere statement that this is the cause of these movements before this explanation can be accepted as true, especially as it was shown, twenty years ago, that they could occur after destruction of the phrenic nerves, and all the cerebrospinal centres. R. M. S. Art. XXXI.--Eighth Annual Report of the State Board of Health of Massachusetts, January, 1877. 8vo. pp. 4SI8. Boston, 1877. Taring it for granted that our readers expect, as a matter of course, to find this Report a very important contribution to sanitary science, we can assure them that they are not mistaken. Some of the papers are naturally, and most properly, prompted by the peculiar needs and conditions obtaining in Massachusetts. One or two others, possibly, might be criticized as being founded on insufficient, or inadequate premises. The first-named trait, while of course adding decidedly to the domestic value of the Report, by no means so certainly injures its outside usefulness. For the same conditions, the same evils, tendencies, and problems, which now obtain in the Bay State, are likely to present themselves, if not already demanding attention, in the younger and less thickly settled communities. Fortunate, indeed, will these be, if their governing bod...