1891.] ~V [Bache 



distance between the poles only three inches. The electro-motive 



force at my disposal in nry galvanic battery — only about thirty 

 volts — was too small, and the resistance too high under these 

 conditions for me long to hope to affect the protozoa in the tube 

 by means of the current. The smallness of the volume of fluid 

 in which the electricity could find play, and the liberation of 

 hydrogen which could not escape or recombine, were together 

 the cause of this ; the resistance from the latter cause proceeding 

 by great leaps when a higher current was eventually employed. 

 With the infusion the resistance was far less than with pure 

 water, but still far too great to allow of much current, owing in 

 sum to the small volume of liquid and to the increased liberation 

 of gas in it as compared with that liberated in water. The cur- 

 rent was so slight that at this point of time I was satisfied that 

 if I were not able thus to destroy the vitality of the protozoa — 

 and that was proved by microscopical examination — a fortiori 

 it was not to be imagined that the vitality of schizomycetes in 

 water could be arrested, because 1 had assumed that they would 

 be more difficult than the other organisms to destroy, a conclusion 

 which I do not now think warranted by my final investigation 

 upon the basis of experiment. I therefore desisted from experi- 

 menting, and did not resume it until the work of Dr. Griffiths on 

 micro-organisms came under my eye, from which I learned that 

 he had killed bacteria with a very small current in media of a 

 fluid character. I then resumed my experiments upon the basis 

 of my previously enlarged experience, that a considerable volume 

 of water is needed for the play of electricity, and that even a 

 slowly increasing bubble of hydrogen in a closed tube, although 

 far from effecting embolism, nevertheless produces rapidly cumu- 

 lative resistance. Every one who deals with batteries or who is 

 well-read in electricity knows in a general way of these pheno- 

 mena ; I am merely referring to the exaggerated degree in which 

 they manifest themselves under the specified conditions. I was 

 well aware that for a given amperage, a given electro-motive 

 force, a given character of liquid, a given temperature, and a 

 given distance between poles, the resistance to a line of force ol 

 electricity is an absolutely fixed quantity. But as my final ob- 

 ject, as will eventually be seen, was to charge a large volume of 

 water so that upon being charged the electricity would concen- 

 trate with intense energy towards the opposite pole, it became 



