MUSCLES, NERVES, AND ELECTRICAL ORGANS. 213 



possessed, and which I then discovered for the first time *, I should 

 not have allowed myself to be deterred from at least beginning a new 

 series of experiments with the muscle multiplier. As I did not 

 know whether each action we observed might not be the last, 

 naturally nothing could be obtained but a rough general outline 

 of the phenomena. Filling up a table systematically with double 

 entries, such as I already possessed for muscle and nerve, was not 

 to be thought of. 



The strip separated from the organ with scissors was about 

 30 mm. long and from 5 to 8mm. wide. The thickness of the 

 organ might have been 5 mm -3 so that supposing the conducting 

 power to be the same, the strip possessed about the same resistance 

 as our group of muscles. The plan of experiment was the same as 

 for muscles, except that, as the organ did not twitch, the stretcher 

 and the wedge-shaped pads for conducting the polarising current 

 were unnecessary. To the two ends of the strip were generally 

 applied ordinary pads soaked in a solution of sulphate of copper 

 covered with a film of albumen 2 . The wedge-shaped pads for 

 leading off the current were steeped in saline solution, and also 

 covered with films of albumen, and were continuous with the ordi- 

 nary old form of conducting vessels with platinum plates in saline 

 solution. Lastly, the alternate closing of the primary and secondary 

 currents, the isolation of both circuits from each other, the control 

 of the time of closure and so on, were effected by means of the 

 same apparatus which I still use for muscle and nerve. With 

 the exception that the external surface of the skin was slightly 

 positive in relation to all the other surfaces of a strip of the 

 organ, there was no trace of electromotive action in the organ 

 at rest 3 . 



The following tabular statement, coming after all the others, will 

 be comprehensible without further explanation. The roman num- 

 bers are Groves, the times are the times of closure, +90 + a? 

 indicates that the needle was deflected until the stop was struck. 

 The deflections of the galvanometer, with ascending and descending 

 currents, are strictly only comparable within the limits of one 

 experiment, as the distance of the bobbin was often altered to make 

 the reading of the deflection easier. 



1 Cf. Untersuchungen am Zitteraal, p. 1 8 8. 



2 It is stated in the Experimentalkritik, through an oversight, that the conducting 

 pads were also wedge-shaped pads (loc. tit. p. 717). 



3 Loc. cit. p. 718 ; Untersuchungen am Zitteraal, p. 172. 



