DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.70267#0055
GALVANISM CONNECTED WITH ELECTRICITY. 30
crural nerves of the animal were touched at the same period
with the blade of a knife. By repeating and varying this
experiment, he was persuaded that these contractions did
not proceed from any mechanical irritation, and he con-
cluded that the phenomena were occasioned by the influence
of electricity alone.
In the course of his labours, being anxious to ascertain
whether natural and artificial electricity produced the same
effects, he placed an animal, prepared for this purpose, so
as to communicate with a conductor, and every time that
a cloud charged with lightning passed over his house, the
living subject notified the event by violent spasms. Soon
after this, he was led in the course of his enquiries to con-
clude, that there existed two kinds of fluids in the animal
system; the one, negative in the muscles, and the other
positive in the nerves. Further researches conducted him
to the irritation excited by the operation of metals in con-
tact, or the muscles when they were placed so as to com-
municate writh the external part of the nerve.
Anterior to the demise of Galvani, (which occurred De-
cember 4, 1798), Valli, a physician of Pisa, still further
developed this new theory; he termed the conductor of the
Professor of Bologna, an excitator, as exciting the nervous
fluid, or the nerve itself to produce certain results; he
also demonstrated the close resemblance, or rather identity
of the Galvanic with the Franklinian system.
The philosophers now took different sides, and while
Fontana, an Italian, asserted that the phenomena did not
proceed from electricity, Lamethrie, a Frenchman, main-
tained in the Journal de Physique, (42d vol.) that there
was no difference whatever between the two powers, ex-
cept that the one was weaker than the other.
Gaillard, the countryman of the latter, endeavoured to
arrange the metals in the express ratio of their action on the
animal ceconomy; and, according to him, they rank in the
following
crural nerves of the animal were touched at the same period
with the blade of a knife. By repeating and varying this
experiment, he was persuaded that these contractions did
not proceed from any mechanical irritation, and he con-
cluded that the phenomena were occasioned by the influence
of electricity alone.
In the course of his labours, being anxious to ascertain
whether natural and artificial electricity produced the same
effects, he placed an animal, prepared for this purpose, so
as to communicate with a conductor, and every time that
a cloud charged with lightning passed over his house, the
living subject notified the event by violent spasms. Soon
after this, he was led in the course of his enquiries to con-
clude, that there existed two kinds of fluids in the animal
system; the one, negative in the muscles, and the other
positive in the nerves. Further researches conducted him
to the irritation excited by the operation of metals in con-
tact, or the muscles when they were placed so as to com-
municate writh the external part of the nerve.
Anterior to the demise of Galvani, (which occurred De-
cember 4, 1798), Valli, a physician of Pisa, still further
developed this new theory; he termed the conductor of the
Professor of Bologna, an excitator, as exciting the nervous
fluid, or the nerve itself to produce certain results; he
also demonstrated the close resemblance, or rather identity
of the Galvanic with the Franklinian system.
The philosophers now took different sides, and while
Fontana, an Italian, asserted that the phenomena did not
proceed from electricity, Lamethrie, a Frenchman, main-
tained in the Journal de Physique, (42d vol.) that there
was no difference whatever between the two powers, ex-
cept that the one was weaker than the other.
Gaillard, the countryman of the latter, endeavoured to
arrange the metals in the express ratio of their action on the
animal ceconomy; and, according to him, they rank in the
following