Vital motion as a mode of physical motion / by Charles Bland Radcliffe.

  • Radcliffe, Charles Bland, 1822-1889.
Date:
1876
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Vital motion as a mode of physical motion / by Charles Bland Radcliffe. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, Harvard Medical School.

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    vessel containing either simple water or brine, and com- pleting the circuit between the two vessels with a gal- vanoscopic frog—the fragment of the spine being im- mersed in one vessel, and the paws in the other—he found that there was a current in the frog from the feet upwards, which current would cause a considerable per- manent deflection of the needle—to 30° or more, if brine were used, to 10°, or thereabouts, if water were sub- stituted for brine. Nobili supposed that this current was peculiar to the frog, and in this he erred ; but he did, nevertheless, a great thing, for, by this experiment, he furnished the first unequivocal proof of the real existence of animal electricity. Twelve or thirteen years later, Matteucci published an essay* which, as M. De la Rive says,t restored to animal electricity the place which it ought to occupy in electrical and physiological phenomena. This essay, moreover, had a great indirect influence upon the for- tunes of animal electricity, for M. Du Bois-Reymond, as he himself tells us, was led to undertake the investiga- tions which have made his name famous in this depart- ment of physiology by the inspiration arising from its perusal. The joint labours of MM. Matteucci and Du Bois- Reymond have left no room for entertaining any doubt as to the reality of animal electricity. This will appear sufficiently in the sequel, when many of the experiments which furnish the demonstration will have to be referred to particularly. In the meantime, it may be said that Matteucci has demonstrated in the most unequivocal * Traits des Pli6nomenes Electro-physiologiques des Animaux. Paris. 1844. t A Treatise on Electricity, in Theory and Practice. Translated by C. V. Walker. 8vo. Longman. 185 3-185 8.