ANIMAL ELECTRICITY. LECTURE III. 



6l 



neither undoubtedly fresh nor unmistakeably stpile — 

 transitional in short. 



Finally it is not uncommon — nor yet common — to 

 witness, even during excitation, what I have been led 

 to regard as characteristic of stale or experimentally 

 maltreated nerve, viz., a positive electrical effect, which 

 has generally prolonged itself in more or less pro- 

 nounced degree as a positive after-effect subsequent to 

 excitation, and has rarely given place to a negative 

 state durino- the first few seconds after excitation. I 

 lay, however, no stress upon this last point ; indeed, it 

 is chiefly for convenience of description that I make 

 this, for the moment empirical, division into three 

 stages — fresh, transitional, and stale, of which the three 

 characteristic features are respectively — (i) a negative 

 effect, (2) a positive after-effect, (3) a positive effect.^ 



II. 



Fig. 23. 



III. 



^ I have argued elsewhere what cannot be argued here, viz., 

 that the positive effect above referred to has not been produced 

 by an ordinary Anelectrotonic current. 



