NATURAL PHILOSOPHY. 93 



RESEARCHES IN ELECTRO-PHYSIOLOGY. 



M. Matteucci has forwarded to the Academy of Sciences, at Paris, 

 an analysis of his latest electric researches in relation to physiology, 

 undertaken with the view of explaining one of the most remarkable 

 yet obscure laws of the science. He began by proving that the passage 

 of an electric current in a non-metallic body, which is, however, a con- 

 ductor of electricity on account of the liquid which it has imbibed, ac- 

 quires the property termed secondary polarity. By virtue of this 

 property, if it be touched by the homogeneous ends of the galvanometer, 

 it is found that this body is traversed by an electric current, directed in 

 a way opposite to the voltaic current which has excited the polarity. 

 Such is the case with a cotton wick moistened with water, a vegetable 

 stem, a membrane, and a nerve, independently of its vitality. Among 

 these different bodies a nerve is remarkable by the rapidity with which 

 it is polarized in all its points, and by the intensity of its polarity. 



Electricity of the Circulation of the Blood. M. Scoutetten has re- 

 ported to the Academy of Sciences at Paris an account of some experi- 

 ments made upon horses which were previously made insensible to pain. 

 He found that the electric positive sign, indicating the direction of the 

 current, was constantly from the red, or arterial, to the black, or venous, 

 blood. He concludes his memoir by saying that since it is demonstrated 

 that the red blood and the black blood, in their contact through the 

 walls of the vessels, which act as true porous vases, give stated electric 

 reactions to the galvanometer, we must admit, that as all the parts of 

 our body are traversed by sanguineous fluids, there must necessarily be 

 a constant disengagement of electricity in the most relaxed tissues of 

 our bodies. Thus each organic molecule is incessantly stimulated by the 

 electric fluid, and thus under the influence of this excitement, all the 

 functions of the body are performed. The oxygen contained in the red 

 blood burns up the organic molecules with which it is in contact, and 

 produces heat, without which life is impossible. Under the influence 

 of electricity is effected, during digestion, the selection of the nutritive 

 molecules and their assimilation. The same action takes place in re- 

 spiration and in all the other functions. These facts perfectly agree 

 with the electric phenomena of combustion. The carbon takes the 

 negative electricity and the surrounding air the positive, or rather, the 

 current is established between the carbon and the oxygen of the air. 

 Now, the principal action of the red blood, by reason of the oxygen in 

 it, is the producing a true combustion in our tissues. 



Electric Conductivity of Muscle. Ranke, a German physiologist, has 

 published, among the results of his investigations into the phenomena of 

 electric currents in the living muscle, the fact that dead muscle is a 

 much better conductor of electricity than living muscle, because of the 

 presence of certain products of decomposition which do not appear till 

 after death. He concludes, further, that the conducting power of living 

 muscle is three million times weaker than that of mercury, and one 

 hundred and fifteen million tunes below that of copper. 



ELECTPJCITY BY FRICTION AND BY CONTACT DERIVED FROM ONE 



SOURCE. 



H. Buff (Ann. tier Cliem. u. Pliarm. Vol. 114) says : For electricity 

 to be evolved bv friction, it is essential that the two surfaces which are 



