Page:Proceedings of the Royal Society of London Vol 4.djvu/407

Rh By C.W. Younghusband, Esq., Lieut, in the Royal Artillery. (Forms 1 and 2.)

6. " Of the ultimate distribution of the xlir-passages, and of the modes of formation of the Air-cells of the Lungs." By William Addison, Esq., F.L.S., Surgeon, Great Malvern. Communicated by R. B. Todd, M.D"., F.R.S.

After reciting the various opinions which have prevailed among anatomists regardino; the manner in v/hich the bronchial tubes terminate, whether, as some suppose, by cells having free communication with one another, or, as others maintain, by distinct and separate cells having no such intercommunication, the author states that having been engaged in investigating, with the aid of the microscope, the seat and nature of pulmonary tubercles, he could never discover, in the course of his inquiry, any tubes ending in a cul-de-sac ; but, on the contrary, always saw, in every section that he made, air-cells communicating with each other. He concludes from his experiments and observations, that the bronchial tubes, after dividing dichotomously into a multitude of minute branches, which pursue their course in the cellular interstices of the lobules, terminate, in their interior, in branched air-passages, and in air-cells which freely communicate with one another, and have a closed termination at the boundary of the lobule. The apertures by which these air-cells open into one another are termed by the author lobular passages : but he states that the air-cells have not an indiscriminate or general intercommunication throughout the interior of a lobule, and that no anastomoses occur between the interlobular ramifications of the bronchiae themselves ; each branch pursuing its own independent course to its termination in a closed extremity. Several drawings of the microscopical appearances of injected portions of the lungs accompany this paper.

The Rev. Henry Christmas, M.A., was balloted for and duly elected into the Society.

A paper was read, entitled, " Remarks on the probable natural causes of the Epidemic Influenza as experienced at Hull in the year 1833 ; with a delineation of the Curves of the maximum, the mean, and the minimum Temperatures in the shade, and the maximum Temperature in the sun's rays at Hull, during the years 1823 and 1833." By G. H. Fielding, M.D. Communicated by the Rev. Wm. Buckland, D.D., F.R.S.

The meteorological causes to which the author ascribes the sudden accession of the influenza at Hull, and its continuance from the 26th of April to the 28th of May 1833, are, first, the unusually cold