On Electric Currents in Warm-blooded Animals. 271 



He has considered the conditions presented by different 

 cases of elasticity of the aether within crystaUized and uncry- 

 stalUzed media, and, in particuhar, traces the consequences 

 of a supposition of this kind in modifying the formula for 

 waves so as to give rise to eUiptic or circular polarization in 

 rock crystal, and refers to a peculiar arrangement of the vi- 

 brating molecules in that substance as influencing the right or 

 left-handed direction of the rotation*. But I cannot find that 

 he took up such an idea upon any more general grounds : in 

 other words, I think he cannot be said tohave shown generally 

 a connexion between the arrangement of the molecules of 

 aether in space, — the forms assumed by the differential equa- 

 tions accordingly, — and the consequent rectilinear or elliptic 

 character of the vibrations. I am still of opinion, therefore, 

 that the credit of first establishing such a general relation is 

 due entirely to Mr. Tovey. 



Oxford, March 10, 1841. 



XLVII. Report on the Memoir on Electric Ciirrents in Warm- 

 blooded Animals, by Prof. Zantedeschi and Dr. Favio, pre- 

 seiited to the Royal Academy of Sciences atid Belles Lettres 

 of Brussels, on the Uh of April, 1840. Bij M. CantraineI . 



THE memoir which is addressed to us relates to electro- 

 physiological doctrines, and the object of the experiments 

 which these gendemen have made, is to ascertain whether 

 electric currents exist in warm-blooded animals; to endeavour 

 to find their connexion with life; their inlensit}', their di- 

 rection, their number, and in what way they may be disco- 

 vered. Electricity, whether considered as the cause of the 

 phenomena of life, or as the special and intimate effect of life, 

 is in some measure a new subject : few persons have attended 

 to it ; the difficulties also which surround such researches are 

 numerous, and we must acknowledge with the authors, that 

 in this case the concurrence of natural philosophy and the 

 medical sciences is indispensable, as much on account of the 

 apparatus which should be used, as for the perspicacity ne- 

 cessary to penetrate into the mysteries of the vital organism. 



These gentlemen set out with the principle enunciated by 

 Pucinotti and Pacinotti, the learned Professors of Pisa, which 

 is based upon the experiments and the observations also made 

 by those Professors. It maintains that in living animals there 

 exists an electro-vital or neuro-clectric current, the character of 



* Mem. Instil., vii. p. 74. 



+ From the Bulletin de I' Academic Royalc des Sciences ct Belles Lettres 

 of Brussels, 1840, No. 8. p. 43; Seance du 1" Aout. 



