on Animal Electricity. 535 



cular current is proportional to the rank of the animal in the 

 series of beings, whilst the duration of this current after death 

 varies in an opposite relation. 



I wished to study the influence of the different gases on the 

 intensity and the duration of the muscular current; for this 

 purpose I arranged an apparatus which allowed me to have a 

 muscular pile in a certain gaseous medium, and to open and 

 close at will the circuit of this pile with the galvanometer. 

 I operated in atmospheric air, in oxygen, in highly rarefied 

 air, in carbonic acid, and in hydrogen. In these different 

 media the muscular pile performed equally, both as to inten- 

 sity and duration. Hydrogen gas alone presented a singu- 

 larity which could not have been foreseen previous to the ex- 

 periment. This peculiarity does not depend on any action 

 of the gas on the muscles, but on a phasnomenon of secon- 

 dary polarity which manifests itself, whatever be the source 

 of the current. The fact is, that in operating in this gas with 

 a muscular pile, the deviation remains constant for several 

 hours. This nullity of action of the different gases above- 

 named on the intensity and the duration of the muscular cur- 

 rent, proves that the origin of this current is in the muscle it- 

 self even liviiiff, or taken from an animal soon after its death. 

 This same consequence is proved by another experiment. 1 

 prepared with some very fine intestinal membrane a great 

 number of small conical cavities; I filled these cavities with 

 sojne fibrine separated from the blood of an ox which had just 

 been killed; I rapidly prepared with these elements a pile, 

 which, in appearance, was perfectly similar to my piles of half 

 thighs {de demicuisses). I obtained no signs of any current from 

 this pile. This pile performed with the same effect in hydro- 

 gen and in oxygen. The cause of the current therefore exists 

 in the muscle, and consequently in its organization and in the 

 chemical actions which take place in its substance when belong- 

 ing to a living animal or one recently killed. The most curious 

 results which I have obtained in these last experiments relate 

 to the proper current of the frog. 1 can now affirm that this 

 current does not appertain exclusively to the frog, but that it is 

 manifested in all the muscles of all animals, provided that these 

 muscles present at their extremities an unequal tendinous 

 termination. All the muscles which have on one side the 

 tendinous extremity more close, more condensed than on 

 the other, give the current directed in the muscle from the 

 tendinous extremity to the surface of the muscle. I have 

 verified this result in all the muscles of the frog, — those of 

 the upper limbs as well as the muscles of the lower limbs; in 

 muscular masses of the pigeon, rabbit and dog. If I have 



