174 SECONDARY ELECTROMOTIVE PHENOMENA IN 



polarisation of the muscles alone ; and even if external polarisation 

 occurs to an observable degree in the electrodes of the battery, it 

 cannot equalise itself through the galvanometer circuit. More- 

 over, one may readily convince oneself that every part of the 

 muscles has a secondary electromotive action in the same direction. 

 Consequently, if the resistance in the galvanometer circuit is suffi- 

 cient, the strength of the action increases with the distance apart of 

 the galvanometer pads. If all parts of the muscle were similar, 

 they must all have an equally strong secondary electromotive 

 action. Apart from the impossibility of applying the electrodes 

 twice successively in the same way, this condition is not fulfilled 

 exactly in our group of muscles, because the serni-membranosus 

 becomes gradually smaller towards its lower part. We shall find, 

 however, another reason why the two halves of a muscle do not 

 act with the same secondary electromotive strength 1 . 



If currents of different strengths are passed through the muscle 

 for different periods of time, the secondary electromotive actions 

 appear at first very confused. Sometimes negative deflections occur, 

 as if from ordinary moist porous bodies susceptible of internal 

 polarisation, sometimes, on the other hand, positive deflections, as 

 if external polarisation was mixed up with it. As already remarked, 

 this last is impossible with the arrangement used. It therefore 

 appears that the positive secondary electromotive action depends 

 upon positive internal polarisation, a condition of which the series 

 of bodies which I tested as regards their internal polarisability 2 

 gave no example. This positive internal polarisation of muscular 

 tissue is therefore the point of novelty and interest, and it is most 

 important to establish the conditions under which it appears. 



There is no other way of accomplishing this but by making a 

 table with double entry, in one column of which, let us say the 

 horizontal one, the time of closure is entered, and in the vertical 

 column the number of battery-cells. In the space corresponding to 

 a given time of closure and a given density of current, must be 

 entered, 1st, the deflections which the polarising current creates in 



1 Gesammelte Abhandlungen, vol. ii. pp. 161, 315, 575. 



2 I first gave information about it in my ' Untersuchungen,' vol. i. 1848, p. 240, 

 and vol. ii. part i. 1849, p. 331. In 1852! made a detailed communication upon it 

 to the British Association in Belfast (Report of the twenty-second Meeting of the 

 British Association, &c., held at Belfast in September, 1852, London 1853, Notices 

 and Abstracts, p. 78). Later I alluded to it in the Report on the ' Zitterwelse ' from 

 West Africa (Monatsberichte der Akademie, 1858, p. 106), and in the Untersuchungen 

 am Zitteraal, p. 206. 



