260 ANNUAL OP SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 



phenomena are, so to say, confounded together, the intoxication is so 

 rapid : the resolution, the absence of respiration, and the cessation of the 

 contractions of the heart, take place, so to say, at the same moment; 

 while these same phenomena were distinctly and easily analyzed, 

 in the experiments where the hematosis and the anesthesia occurred 

 at the same time. When the chloroform was administered witli 

 mixture, the experiment succeeded, (though not without difficulty) 

 notwithstanding its instantaneous effects, in recalling to life a few 

 animals, whose hearts still contracted, although their beatings could 

 no longer be felt. When a certain quantity of air was mixed with 

 the chloroform, the respiration and the beatings of the heart persisted 

 longer, and less difficulty was experienced in obtaining the same 

 results. 



M. Jobert de Lamballe says that he is firmly convinced that so soon 

 as the heart has ceased to perform its functions, it is idle to endeavor 

 to recall a life which has fled away forever ; but he is as firmly con- 

 vinced that if the heart has any, the least contractions, they maybe 

 recalled to their normal number by the application of electricity. 

 Two methods have been employed to direct electricity upon the vital 

 organs, or upon the agents which transmit to them motion and sensi- 

 bility. Either it has been excited on the surface of the body by excit- 

 ing sponges, or it has been directed through the organs by the aid of 

 the electro-puncture. Its action upon the sensitive and moving part 

 of the body has been constant, and when vitality was not altogether 

 extinct it has invariably awakened the nervous system, reanimated the 

 functions, and revived the muscular contractions. Is sensation lost by 

 the oppression of the nervous system, is motion benumbed ? Electricity 

 soon restores them to their normal states. If the stupor of the nervous 

 system has gone so far as to produce a grave trouble in the senses, and 

 in the respiration, and in the circulation, or in any of them ; electricity 

 will altogether remove the perturbation. So long as the air circulates 

 in the breast, even imperceptibly ; so long as the heart contracts, even 

 if it be so slight as to be inappreciable ; so long as the blood flows 

 thither, and is expelled thence, even irregularly ; electricity still has 

 sufficient power to bring the animal completely back to life. It is 

 almost certain that water, air, and other, the common excitants, would 

 have been vainly employed while the animal Avas in this syncopal 

 state. But Avhen the contractions of the heart are merely a muscular 

 irritability ; when the circulation has ceased ; when the muscles of the 

 glottis have ceased their action ; electricity produces only irregular 

 contractions, like those the battery excites in the muscles after they have 

 been separated from the body. Life is extinct, and electricity cannot 

 bring back what is not there. One of the most striking results of 

 electricity is its influence over the stupefying action of chloroform. 

 The whole animal machine, when submitted to the action of the elec- 

 tric battery, is rapidly awakened. As the shocks are increased, the 

 muscles increase their contractions ; the exterior and the interior mus- 

 cles are equally influenced by the regenerating fluid, so that sensibility 

 and motion are both excited, " which, according to my sense, is the 



