192 Gah'anifm. 



of the dog, the confra6tioiis of the frog tcr^k place as with 

 the Galvanic apparatus; wliich, according to the ohrcrvatiun? 

 ot the author, leaves no doubt refpe^ting the exiRence of tlie 

 animal circle ajad pile. Tliele ingenious experiments will 

 doubtlefs furnifli to their modefl: and learned aullior a multi- 

 tude ot other ideas on the animal economv, particularly re- 

 fpefting the nervous fluid, &c., which leave him the'car«- 

 and glory to explain. 



For my p;irt, f came out from thefe experiments charmed 

 and tranl'portcd with admiration at the fimplicity of the means 

 which nature employs in its pha?noniena that ieem to us the 

 moft complex. It appears to me proved, that to perform a 

 prodigious number of its operations it contents itfelf with one 

 eledric fluid, which it puts in motion at the furface and in 

 the interior of the earth by a kind of Galvanic piles, which 

 produce, as I have explained in my le£tures, a great number 

 of the phasnomena of the animal and vegetable kingdom ; 

 and that it has employed the fame ajrent in the animal kintr- 

 dom, by organizing the nerves and mufcles as Galvanic piles 

 lo execute moft of the operations of animal life by the f^ame 

 agent, and by means of thefe fubftances the nerves and the 

 mufcles, which it has organized in fuch a manner, that they 

 difcharge, in regard to each other, the fame functions as the 

 difl'erent metals the contact of which excites a permanent 

 current of the eleftric fluid ; which is the molt valuable dif- 

 covery for which we are indebted to the pile of Volta. 



It had hitherto been tried, without fuccefs, to excite a per- 

 manent electric current without friction ; and the machine 

 of Hierne did not accompliih this end in a fatisfadlory 

 manner. 



This permanence of the ele6tric fluid, for which we are 

 indebted to the Voltaic pile, is a difcoverv, tlien, no lefs ad- 

 mirable perhaps than that of C. Aldinl ; and both have given 

 to the natural fciences a Itimulus which will aflonilh future 

 ages, it the refults be followed, as there is no rcafon lo doubt. 

 Masl vKR-DiN, ProfclTor in the 

 Special School of Medicine at Strafburgb. 



