Obfervations on Animal Eleétricity. 141 
utility both to the fcience of electricity in general, and par- 
ticularly to medical electricity, I refolved to make refearches 
on this fubjeét by means of experiments. The method I 
employed was as follows :—In order that I might examine 
the electricity of my own body, I infulated myfelf on a board 
which ftood on glafs feet. I then touched, for a determined 
time, (at firft commonly half a minute, afterwards only a 
moment,) the plate of my condenfer, which I have defcribed 
in another place*; I then applied the condenfer to a Caval- 
Jo’s highly fenfible electrometer, as -improved by M. De 
Sauffure, and, by means of a glafs tube rubbed with a piece 
of woollen cloth, examined the kind of electricity when an- 
nounced by the diverging threads. The eleétricity of the 
plate of the condenfer or ele¢trometer, which correfponded 
with that of the body, I marked with + when pofitive, with 
— when negative, and with o when none was prefent. J 
made my experiments on the 21ft of February 1786; and 
fince that period have repeated them, not only on myfelf, but 
on other perfons, both male and female, of various ages and 
different conftitutions, when they were in motion, or at reft; 
dreffed and undreffed; when tired, and in good fpirits; hot or 
cold; fafting or full; fleeping or awake; at different tempe~ 
atures of fs weather and of the apartment, &c. 
Refults of the ‘Ehperiments? 
1. Animal electricity is common to all men; Bead get 
found it, in the courfe of my experiments, on thirty perfons 
of both fexes and all ages, and of every habit of body, I can 
with juftice conclude on its being general. 
2. Animal electricity is different in different men, at the 
fame place and at the fame time}; not only in ftrength, but 
-alfo in the kind; being in many weak, and others ftrong; in 
fome pofitive, and in fome negative. 
3. This difference of electricity is often obferved in: dif- 
ferent perfons, when, befides time and place, the other cir- 
gumfances appear to be all equal. 
4. The &rength and kind of this eleéricity are often dif. 
* See Gren’s Fournal der Phyfik, Vol, IL Part I1. p. 210. 
ferent; 
