Galvanic Experiments. 43 



decapitation and that of the experiments (hall be lefs. With 

 this view, indeed, we have provided a hall much nearer to 

 tHe place of execution ; for the refults which we obtained in 

 the man decapitated on the loth of Auguft, in which cafe 

 the experiments were begun five minutes after the decapita- 

 tion, were all comparatively more (Iriking, and ftronger, than 

 thofe obtained in the experiments of vellerday, which were 

 begun more than twenty minutes after decapitation, and 

 which w-ere performed, as appears, on bodies endowed with 

 a much weaker degree of vitality. 



In the experiments made on the arteries, we armed the 

 nervous plexus, vyhich envelop the trunks of the coeliac and 

 mefcnteric arteries, feveral branches of which are even inter- 

 woven around the aorta : a communication was eftabliftied 

 between the pofitive or negative extremity of the pile and the 

 aortic artery ilfelf. It was by thefe means that we obtained 

 rifible contraftions. 



If the effefts of Galvanifm on arterial contractions are con- 

 fiant, as I prekune, all thofe difcuffions which have beeu 

 Agitated fo long, and with fo much violence, in regard to the 

 irritability of the arteries, which does not manifefl itfelf by 

 the adlion of different mechanical and chemical ftjmulants, 

 will at iength be terminated in a pofilive and irrefragable 

 nianner; all doubts will at length be removed ; and we ihall 

 be indebted to the Galvanic fluid, which is the moft ener- 

 getic of all agents applied to the animal fibre, for having fixed 

 the opinions of phyfiologifts on a point of fo nmch importance 

 to the animal economy. 



Whence comes it that Aldini, even with the help of the 

 mofi powerful eleftro-motors, was not able to obtain con- 

 traftions in the heart of man, which we fo evidently obtained 

 by the fame means which always v.ithftood his efforts ? Ilowr 

 happens it that we obtained contraftions by means much 

 weaker? 



The firft experiments of Aldini on the human heart were 

 begun an hour and a half after death *'. The trunk had beer» 

 expofed a long time to the open air, the temperature of which 

 was no more than + a. It is probable that the cold, and 

 the long interval between the period of death and that of the 

 experiment, had already annihilated the irrilabilitv of the 

 heart f . In the fifty-third experiment, the heart of another 



executed 



* Saggio di Sperienze ful Galvanifino di Gioani Aldini; Bolonia 1S02, 

 p, 14, dp. 28. 



t If the celebrated Bichat failed in his experiments on the human luart, 

 at well rts Aldini, ic was, perhaps, owing to the fame caufcs. The tcm- 



pcTtiture 



