ANIMAL ELECTRICITY. LECTURE IV. ^J 



acidic moiety of the molecule K I. We may take 

 this as our memorandum experiment signifying to us 

 that with passage of current and consequent electro- 

 lysis there appear : 



at the Anode at the Kathode 



acid base 



oxygen hydrogen 



chlorine sodium 



electro-negative ions electro-positive ions. 



These electrolytic products at the two poles respec- 

 tively are themselves, so long as they are in stattt 

 nascendi, electromotive against the current that pro- 

 duces them ; thus oxygen, produced at the anode, and 

 hydrogen, produced at the kathode, constitute a voltaic 

 couple of which the current obstructs the original 

 current by which they are generated, giving a 

 secondary or polarisation counter-current that amounts 

 virtually to a resistance against the original current. 

 A voltaic cell in action, like living matter in action, 

 surrounds itself with products of its own activity, 

 obstructive of that activity. And the analogy that 

 might be drawn up between the polarisation and 

 depolarisation of a voltaic cell, and the disintegration 

 and reintegration of living matter, would perhaps be 

 not very far-fetched nor much more inaccurate than 

 are all analogies. 



But let me formally exhibit to you this fundamental 

 fact of the polarisation counter-current. [It has in- 

 deed already exhibited itself informally in a way that 



