THE HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT OF NEUROPHVSIOLOG V I 5 



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FIG. 9. Thf Abbe Nollt-t and some of his experiments in which he electrified plants and animals. 

 The portrait, which shows the Abbe in his study at La Mouette, is from the oil painting by Jacques 

 de Lajoue that hangs in the Musee Carnavalet in Paris and is reproduced by kind permission of the 

 Conservateur, M. Charageat. The illustration on the right is from Nollet's book, Recherches sur les 

 Causes Particuliers des Phenomhies Electnques. Paris, I 749. 



among the muscular Fibres we may with good reason 

 conclude, how short this Force is of producing so 

 great an Effect, as that of muscular Motion, which 

 wonderful and hitherto inexplicable Mystery of Na- 

 ture, must therefore be owing to some more vigorous 

 and active Energy, whose Force is regulated by the 

 Nerves; but whether it he confined in Canals within 

 the Nerves, or acts along their surfaces like electrical 

 Powers, is not easy to determine." 



At the end of the century came Galvani. His 

 famous Commentary, published first in 1791, appeared 

 at a time of intense interest in electricity. The demon- 

 stration by Stephen Gray (67) in England that the 

 human body could be electrified had been taken up 

 and popularized by the Abbe Nollet (68) at the 



French Court and by Hausen (69), the Professor of 

 Mathematics in Leipzig. Each had copied Gray's ex- 

 periment in which he suspended a boy by ropes from 

 the ceiling, bringing a flint-glass tube that had been 

 charged by friction close to his feet and watching the 

 attraction of a leaf-brass electroscope to his nose (see 

 fig. 10). 



Electroscopes of this primitixe type were the only 

 instruments then available for the detection of elec- 

 tricity, the most sensitive one being that developed by 

 the curate of a rural parish in Derbyshire (70). This 

 delicate instrument with its gold leaves was identified 

 by his name as Bennet's electrometer, though it was 

 .scarcely a metrical device. Sources of electricity were 

 still the frictional machines, first globes of sulphur, 

 gla.ss or porcelain, and later revoking discs. It was 



67. Gray, Stephen (?-i736). Experiments concerning elec- 

 tricity. Phil. Trans. 37: 18, 1731. 



68 Noi,i.ET, Jean-Antoine (1700-1770). Essai sur I'electricile 

 des corps. Paris: Guerin, 1746. 



69. Hausen, Christian August (1693-1743). Novi projeclus in 

 historia electricitatis. Leipzig, I743' 



70. Bennet, Abraham (1750- 1799). .New Experiments on Elec- 

 tricity. Derby : John Drewry, I 789. 



