248 A Retrospect in Biochemistry [Dec. 



such demonstrations are carried out somewhat differently in con- 

 nection with bacteriology and experimental medicine and surgery. 



The course in chemistry followed in the medical schools until 

 the last decade of the nineteenth Century was largely one on gen- 

 eral chemistry, with special emphasis on the portions relating to 

 life processes, to sanitation, water and foods, and toxicology while 

 the discussion of drugs and pharmaceutical preparations was dele- 

 gated to the chair of therapeutics. There was small chance, there- 

 fore, for the systematic study of biochemistry as now understood. 

 Laboratory instruction consisted of a study of the qualitative and 

 quantitative tests for the more important inorganic and organic sub- 

 stances having a relation to medicine, followed by work on the urine, 

 milk, blood and other animal fluids and tissues. The foregoing, 

 with experiments on animals, and the action of poisons, constituted 

 the routine work of the students at the New York Medical College, 



At that period there was great interest in obtaining electric pht- 

 nomena from electric fish, from various tissues and in studying the 

 effects of the current on the animal organism. Matteucci con- 

 structed a battery from the demi-thighs of frogs, a silver wire 

 attached to the exterior of the denuded muscle being the positive, 

 another to the interior of the thigh muscle the negative, electrode. 

 If these were connected to a galvanometer, the deflection of the 

 needle demonstrated the presence of a current. The slaughter 

 houses in New York City were located North and East of 23d 

 Street and Lexington Avenue. It was possible to get a freshly 

 slaughtered bullock's head and have it cut off below the larynx. 

 When quickly taken to the College on East I3th Street, the tissues 

 were still sensitive enough to show the effect of the voltaic current. 

 With one pole of a battery thrust into the spinal cord, whenever the 

 other was touched to the outer surface of the head, the facial mus- 

 cles could be made to contract, the nostrils to dilate, the eyes to roll, 

 the tongue protrude, and sometimes a semi-bellow could be caused 

 by making the wind-pipe suddenly contract below the vocal cords. 



Aldini constructed a bovine battery of bullock's heads like the 

 frog battery alluded to above. The rythmic pulsations of an extir- 

 pated turtle's heart are easily shown on a screen, as also the circu- 

 lation of the blood in the Omentum of a pithed frog. Such experi- 

 ments given in a lecture make a never to be forgotten impression. 



