for cases of mental alienation, and still asked if they were soon to be taken there, so tranquil are the patients, so much engaged in their ordinary occupations, walking about singly or together; in a word so much does their life there resemble that of rational creatures.

The history which M. Pinel has given of so many unfortunate beings *, is not only an important medical book, but a first rate work in philosophy, and even in morals. Nowhere can the irresistible influence of the organs on the faculties be better learnt; but a still more useful knowledge that may be derived from it, is that of the influence of the passions on the organs. In his treatise, we see that more than half of the cases of alienation take their rise in passions, which an enlightened reason has not kept within just bounds; that madness is but the pas sions themselves carried to a monstrous excess, and that even in most of the alienations which are supposed to be attributable to physical causes, it is not certain whether these causes had not merely developed a disposition generated by former passions and feelings.

In the Academy, M. Pinel belonged not to the medical section, but to that of anatomy and zoology. Too desirous of having him, to wait till a place should become vacant in the first of these sections, the society found him sufficiently entitled to the second, as the writer of his essays on the Mechanism of Animals, and elected him as a zoologist, when, in 1783, one of the members of that section was raised to the situation of perpetual secretary. His publications on these subjects, though not numerous, evidently shew that he would have taken great interest in zoological investigations, had he not been obliged to relinquish them, when he devoted himself entirely to the teaching of medicine. In a memoir on the Zygomatic Arch †, he shewed that its curvature upwards is so much the stronger the firmer the support it has to afford to the muscles that close the jaws. This is what takes place in carnivorous animals. The herbivora have it nearly straight, and sometimes in the glires it is bent downwards.

* Traité Medicale, &c. Medical and Philosophical Treatise on Mental Alienation or Mania, one vol. 8vo. 1800. The second edition was published in 1809. Journal de Physique, t. xli. p. 401.

2

Another memoir explains the mechanism, by which lions and other animals of the cat tribe, without fatigue, keep their claws raised, when they do not need to use them. In a third memoir *, he endeavours to account for the extraordinary form of the head of the elephant, and especially for the double convexity of its occiput, the object of which is to furnish more extensive attachments to the muscles destined to support the head, clumsy enough of itself, and made still more so by the proboscis and tusks peculiar to that animal. He also wrote several papers on the mechanism of the different luxations +.

It would seem that these are the only remains of his first labours, and that he did not even preserve in manuscript any sketch of the plan, which, without doubt, he had formed. His capacious and geometrical head did not need this resource. The whole of science was there strongly imprinted, and he detached at will these kinds of fragments, as if to shew the extent of his powers.

Who would have thought that an understanding so enlarged, and faculties so perfect, were themselves destined to furnish an example of the weakness of our nature? It is but too true, that towards the end of his life, M. Pinel felt the gradual approach of a state which he had often found to be incurable. He saw that his duty was thenceforth to live in repose, and await with resignation the moment when his physical existence would share the fate of his intellect. His life, though from that time less valuable to himself and to the public, was still dear to those by whom he had been beloved. It was now only a recollection, but it was the recollection of a fine genius and a worthy man. Their tender and respectful cares smoothed, as much as it was possible, his mournful transition. He quietly fell asleep on the 25th October 1826, at the age of eighty-one

years.

His place in the Faculty had been disposed of on the new organisation which took place in 1823. That which he occupied in the Academy was given to M. Frederick Cuvier.

* Journel de Physique, t. xliii. p. 47.

+ Journal de Physique, t. xxxiii. p. 12; t. xxxiv. p. 350; t. xxxv. p. 457.

On the Ergot in Maize, and its Effects on Man and Animals. By M. ROULIN *.

IT has long been known that rye, affected with the ergot, when taken as food, gives rise to convulsive and gangrenous diseases. It is also known, that, when properly administered, it exercises a particular action upon the uterus; and its efficacy, as a medicine, seems now sufficiently proved. It was supposed from analogy, that the ergot developed similar properties in all the gramines which it attacks, but hitherto the accuracy of this supposition has not been proved by any direct experiment.

During a residence in America, M. Roulin had occasion to observe the ergot upon a cereal plant which has never been attacked by it in Europe, the Maize, which, in all the warm parts. of Columbia, forms a principal article of food to the lower classes. The symptoms much resembled, in some respects, those produced by rye in the same state, but in others differed materially.

In Columbia, maize, thus altered, is called Mais peladero, that is, maize which causes the hair to fall off. In fact, it produces this effect, which is so much the more remarkable in a country where baldness is almost unknown even in old persons. Sometimes, also, but more rarely, it causes looseness and falling out of the teeth; but the author never saw it produce gangrene of the limbs, or convulsive diseases.

The accidents produced by maize affected with the ergot, appear, therefore, in Columbia less terrible, than those which, in our climates, result from rye in the same state. May this difference depend upon the circumstance that the American peasants, who, in many cases, use the banana in place of bread, make but a very limited use of maize? Should the cause be sought for in the difference of composition of the two kinds of grain, maize not containing gluten, a substance highly putrescible? This the author does not decide.

In hogs, which make use of the spoiled maize, the hair is

*M. E. Roulin's Memoir was lately read to the French Academy of Sciences, but is not yet published.

seen in a few days to fall off; and, at a later period, the hind legs of the animal waste, and are hardly able to support it. M. Roulin had no opportunity of observing the further effects that might result in this animal, from the prolonged use of maize in this state, for the moment it began to waste, it was killed for the sake of its flesh. He never heard that the use of this food was followed by accidents.

Mules make no difficulty in eating maize affected with the ergot, the use of which, however, produces in them depilation, swelling of the feet, and sometimes the casting of the hoofs. Poultry which eat of it pretty frequently lay eggs without shell. According to M. Roulin, this circumstance, which at first appears so singular, is to be explained, by conceiving that the ergot excites contractions in the organs destined for the expulsion of the egg, which drive it from the oviduct, before it has had time to be invested with its earthy envelope.

On this subject M. Roulin announced his opinion respecting the possibility of abortions being produced in women, by the use of rye affected with the ergot. Without doubt, the dose necessary for determining the expulsion of the fetus, would require to be greater when the woman was not near her term; but it would seem that the criminal abuse which might be made of this substance cannot be denied. "If it had not been observed,” said he, “that the use of infected rye, mixed with the food, produced premature delivery, one does not see what could have led people to administer it, for the purpose of hastening labour at the full term."

It is known that infected rye never acts more powerfully than when newly gathered. This is also the case with infected maize, only with this difference, that the poison seems more active before the seed has acquired its full maturity.

Maize, from the period when it begins to enter into the ear, to the time when it is cut down, is surrounded by numerous enemies. Beasts and birds are equally fond of it, and it is only the most active watching that can keep them off. When the crop is spoiled by the ergot, there is commonly a relaxation in this fatiguing guardianship. The animals then gorge themselves day and night with this bad grain, which acts upon them with frightful rapidity. It is not rare to see monkeys and par

rots fall as if inebriated in the midst of the field, without the power of ever rising again. Wild-dogs and deer, which are equally fond of maize, but which only come to feed upon it in the night, sometimes experience the same fate: in the morning they are found in the thickets about the plantation, and the flight of the gamurros points out the place where they have crept to die.

After what has been said above, could it be believed that a substance capable of causing death so suddenly could in a short time lose its deleterious qualities, and become susceptible of being used as food? Yet this is what seems to be proved by a concurrence of disinterested testimonies. Many credible persons have assured the author, that when the Mais peladero has passed the Paramos, high mountains covered with perpetual snow, it is found destitute of all noxious quality. This at least is certain, that it is frequently carried to the villages of the Cordillera, situated on the opposite declivity, and is there purchased by men who are ignorant of the danger which it would have caused them in the place where it grew.

Might not this fact account, in a certain degree, for the differences which are observed in the action of infected rye, when it is employed as a medicine? It would be interesting to determine, whether the grain, which is found to be without efficacy, may not have been exposed in some magazines not well secured against the colds of winter; while that which still acts with energy may have been kept in a place the temperature of which is subject to little variation, in a cellar, or in an apartment constantly heated.

On Hibernation, and the Action of Cold upon Animals. On the 15th June 1828, M. Flourens read to the French Academy of Sciences, a Memoir On some Effects of the Action of Cold upon Animals*. The author commenced with general remarks on the influence of the unequal distribution of heat upon the economy of the world. It is it that determines the dif

• The Memoir, of which the above is a condensed view, is not yet publis hed.