134 Galvanic Experimejits 



of the extremities, which gave contractions till fifty-eight 

 minutes ; when all motion ceased. 



I repeated the same experiment on a similar anim:;!, 

 takino; care not to begin till eighteen minutes after : it was 

 preserved from death, but remained apoplectic for nine 

 hours. At this period it \yas completely resto^red by swalr 

 lowing a little vinegar, I then suffocated a third in the 

 same gas; and after galvanizing it for sixteen minutes 

 without hopes of reviving it, I electrified it positively, and 

 also applied galvanisin, I immediately observed, with s\n-- 

 prisc, distinct pult^ations of the heart, and at the san\e time 

 i-'ome respiration, for about eleven minutes; but these move- 

 Tiients ceased at the end of eighteen niinutes, after which it 

 was really dead. From this fact it would appear that some 

 doubts might be entertained in regard to the different nature 

 of these two fluids ; that is to say, vitreous electricity, and 

 that of the pile. I do not, however, sec tiiat their nature is 

 tssentially different. I rather obsi^rve a difference of condi-t 

 lion between them, and particularly in their manner of 

 acting Qi\ animals ; for an animal electriiied positively when 

 it still reUiins a certain power to animalize the electricity, 

 is put into a stale capable of supporting a stronger exci' 

 taut, such as the fluid of the pile, which is also electric 

 but diflerently moclified, which being applied to animak 

 the organs of which are already deprived in a great measure 

 of the property of feeling th^ stimulant, on which they can- 

 not, as we may sav, re-act, must be conitjidcre^ as capable 

 of speedily annihilating the little vitality still existing in the 

 .^■ame organs^ unless applied with great; circumspection. It 

 ina\' therefore be laid dow ';a as a general principle, that when 

 excitabili^v is acv;unu\lated it may always be ciuployed with 

 advantage; that when real indirect debihty exists, recourse 

 must be had to it with caution, and it inust be applied only 

 by degrees ; and, lastly, that if the patient is asthenic, the 

 use of it may become fatal. 



To throw more light on this difficult point in regard t^ 

 the application of galvanism, I shall resunie other experir 

 ments, whicl,i will form the subject of another memoir, 

 containing a detail of several cures obtained by means of th;- 

 above fluid, and among others of partial palsies, and of a 

 rase of hvdroph,obia, which C. Vassalli-luuidi has already 

 announced in his letter to C. Rpssi. You wiU observe that 

 t!ie above-meniioned experiments, as far as concerns the 

 duration of vitality in re2;ard to galvanism, do not exactly^ 

 'orrcipond in all iiuimals j; which proves that the vitality oi 



