Galvanic Experiments. 39 



to extend the domain of an inexhauftible agent fertile in 

 wonders. 



Volta had announced that the invokmtary organs, fuch as 

 the heart, the llomach, the inteftines, the bladder and vef- 

 fels, are infenfible to the Galvanic aftion*': but we have fully 

 refuted this great phyfiological error. Unfortunately, how- 

 ever, the Latin memoir containing the decifive experiments 

 which we made on cold-blooded and warm-blooded animals 

 in 1792, prefented to the Academy foon after, and which, 

 according to Sue, in his Hiftory of Galvanifm +, " are cu- 

 rious, and contain very interefting obfervations," did not ap- 

 pear till 1801, when it was printed in the lad volume of the 

 Tranfa6lions of the Academy. 



In that interval Grapengiefler found, as we had done, that 

 Galvanifm, by means of zinc and filver J, has an influence 

 on the periftaltic motion. Humboldt afcertained the Gal- 

 vanic action on the hearts of frogs, lizards, toads, and fiflies. 

 Smuch obferved the excitability of the heart bv the Galvanic 

 fluid; and Fowler changed the pulfations of the heart with- 

 out the immediate application to it of armatures, and only by 

 adapting them in warm-blooded animals to the recurrent 

 nerve by means of the fympathetic §. 



It is chiefly in regard to the experiments of thefe learned 

 Germans that the hiftorian of Galvanifm Hates ||, that the 

 involuntary vermicular motion of the inteftines, according to 

 the acknowledgment of all phyfiologills, obeys metallic irri- 

 tation; whence it follows, fays he, that the Italian philofo- 

 phers have advanced an error when they faid that Galvanifm 

 exercifes no a<Sion but bu the mulcles, which depend on tlie 

 will. As an accurate and impartial hi dorian, how can Sue 

 accufe the Italian philofophers indifcriminately of fuch an 

 error, fince he had our memoir before him when employed 

 on the fccond volume of his Hiftory of Galvanifm, and fince 

 he gave a fhort account of my experiments in his firft vo- 

 lunve ? Nav, I gave an account of my experiments in a fmall 

 work publiflied in Italian in 1792. JBut as Italian works are 

 not much read in France, and were lefs fo at that period, f 

 (hould not have reproached C. Sue with this a6l of injuftice, 



• Mezzini, Volta, Valli, Klein, Pfaff, Bcrhcnds, have denied that the 

 heart could be moved by the Galvanic fluid. H//f. ilu G.d-janifme, part i. 

 p. 145. Bich:it could obr^tin no coiitra£\ioiis cither in the heart of man or 

 that of the dog. Sec Rci-hcrcbcs Phyfiologiqun Jur hi Vic ct la Mori. 



\ Towards the end of the firft part, 



\ See HiJIoire da Galvunifme, vol. ii. p. 81. 



J ibid. vol. ii. p. 84. !| Vol. ii. p. S3. 



D 4 apd 



