244 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 



current. Moreover, if a portion of muscle be separated from the 

 body of an animal freshly killed, and placed in communication 

 with a galvanometer, a feeble degree of electricity is demon- 

 strated. According to the opinion of M. Schultz Schultzenstein, 

 as presented to the French Academy of Sciences, this is due to 

 the influence of oxygen upon the flesh, a cause always existing 

 when the muscles retain their normal state of irritability. As- 

 suming that animal electricity was due to the cause surmised by 

 Galvani, the evidence of the current would cease so soon as the 

 muscles become completely inert, or, so to speak, completely 

 dead. But the reverse is the fact. The more decomposed the 

 flesh becomes, the stronger are the advances of its electrical condi- 

 tion, and when it has acquired a state of almost total putridity it 

 imparts the maximum deviation to the needle. That the presence 

 of a saline liquid is necessary to these electrical effects is proved 

 convincingly by several circumstances. One is that meat newly 

 salted becomes electrical in proportion to the penetration of the 

 solution ; and the other, that cured meats, whether beef, pork, or 

 fish, evince a high state of electrical development. The blood of 

 a living animal is altogether destitute of electrical excitation, but 

 becomes capable of affecting the galvanometer so soon as the 

 animal is killed, and its power increases with the putrefaction of 

 the body. A small addition of common salt to the blood immedi- 

 ately increases its electrical sensibility. If the epidermis of an 

 animal be removed, the under layers of cuticle are highly electri- 

 cal, as experiments upon frogs have demonstrated ; and this condi- 

 tion is still further augmented by the addition of a saline solution. 

 From these results we are justified in assuming that animal 

 electricity, in its original symptoms, is a delusion, and that, without 

 the intervention of some slightly saline liquid, the nerves and 

 muscles are per se powerless to afford the smallest evidence of an 

 electrical current. Unless a chemical action can be set up, there is 

 nothing to indicate the presence of that vital muscular agency 

 which the first experiments in connection with the subject led the 

 older philosophers to insist upon and adhere to. The animal cur- 

 rent, which they so fondly propounded and believed in, is simply 

 an ordinary electrical current produced chemically by the contact 

 of a saline solution with animal matter, in which combination the 

 salt acts the part of the electrometer. Adopting this view of the 

 question* it is easy to perceive that the development of animal 

 electricity, in invalids and diseased organs, instead of being due to 

 the cause originally entertained, is solely the consequence of chemi- 

 cal decomposition. Thus, for instance, the mucous membrane of 

 the mouth becomes electrical in patients suffering under disease of 

 the stomach or digestive organs, and strong evidences of it are 

 manifested in malignant, cancerous, and other ulcers of a danger- 

 ous and fatal type. All animal excretions are electrical, and 

 urine possesses this property in so remarkable a degree as to 

 cause the needle of the galvanometer to make a complete revolu- 

 tion of the dial. The electricity of fishes results from an alkaline 

 solution in the cells of the electric organs, and manifests itseU' 

 very powerfully. All the effects of animal electricity may there 



