444 SCIENCE PROGRESS. 



characteristics are thus known. It has further been shown 

 by Burch that the allowance having been made by taking 

 appropriate measurements, the true history of the electrical 

 disturbance may be always deduced from the distorted 

 account recorded in the curve of the electrometer displace- 

 ment, since the degree and character of the distortion are 

 constant. This has now been done in the case of the 

 records obtained from nerve, and if correct the deductions 

 thus obtained indicate for the first time the magnitude, dura- 

 tion and character of the excitatory electrical disturbance of 

 nerve. The present writer has a firm belief that before long 

 similar methods of investigation will be more extensively 

 applied to the study of nerve by those who up to tne 

 present have chiefly utilised older methods ; if this should 

 take place he feels convinced that as fruitful a field of 

 research lies before those who are studying nerve pheno- 

 mena as lay before physiologists when Helmholtz intro- 

 duced the graphic method in connection with the study of 

 muscle. 



Francis Gotch. 



