Chicken 1-2080 1-3483 1-2102 1-3466 Turkey 1-1894 1-3444 1-2045 1-3599 Duck 1-1955 1-3504 1-1937 1-3424 Pigeon 1-1892 1-3804 1-1973 1-3643 Goose 1836 1-3839 Quail 2347 1-3470 Dove 2005 1-3369 Sparrow 2140 1-3500 Owl 1736 1-4076 The subject of minute measurements was discussed in an interesting manner in an address before the Microscopical Section of the A.A.A.S. last year, an abstract of which was published in this journal, vol. v., p. 181. The slight differences in size accurately given in this table are not always appreciable under modern amplification, but under a power of 1,150 diameters "corpuscles differing by the 1-100000 of an inch are readily discriminated." For the conclusions of Prof. Wormley as regards the possibility of identifying blood of different animals, the reader is referred to his book on Micro-Chemistry of Poisons.--_Amer. Micro. Jour._ * * * * * THE ABSORPTION OF PETROLEUM OINTMENT AND LARD BY THE SKIN. [Footnote: From the _American Druggist_.] E. Joerss has investigated the question whether ointments made with vaseline or other petroleum ointments are really as difficult of resorption by the skin, or of yielding their medicinal ingredients to the latter, as has been asserted. In solving this question, he considered himself justified in drawing conclusions from the manner in which such compounds behaved toward _dead_ animal membrane. If any kind of osmosis could take place, he argued, from ointments prepared with vaseline, etc., through dead membranes, such osmosis would most probably also take place through living membranes. At all events, the endosmotic or exosmotic action of the skin of a living body must necessarily play an important _role_ in the absorption of medicinal agents; and, on the other hand, it is plain that fats, which render the living skin impermeable, necessarily also diminish or entirely neutralize its osmotic action. To test this, the author made the following experiments: Bladder was tied over the necks of three wide-mouthed vials, with bottoms cut off, and each was filled with iodide of potassium ointment. No. 1 contained an ointment made with lard. No. 2, one made with unguentum paraffini (_Germ. Pharm_.), and No. 3, one made with unguentum paraffini mixed with 3 per cent. of lard.