MUSCLES, NERVES, AND ELECTEICAL ORGANS. 225 



determining- the electrodynamic interaction between an electrical 

 current and an electromotive molecule certainly raises several knotty 

 points, nevertheless, so far as the electrodynamic forces are known 

 with certainty, it may now be affirmed that no rotation of the 

 molecule through these forces is possible. 



So far as Grothuss' theory in its original form presupposes that 

 atoms of oxygen and hydrogen form a kind of molecular chain in 

 the conductors of the second class undergoing electro-chemical 

 decomposition, this representation does not agree strictly with the 

 polarisation of muscles, nerves, and electrical organs by the current. 

 The explanation I gave in the ' Untersuchungen ' even now seems 

 me to sufficient to give to the theory of directable molecules as 

 much plausibility as is usually attainable in dealing with molecular 

 processes of this kind. 



It has indeed since then received some support from the dis- 

 covery of the anaphoric actions of the current by Jiirgensen *, and 

 their explanation by Quincke 2 . If particles floating in a fluid and 

 negatively electrified by contact with it, migrate to the anode before 

 our eyes, the conclusion does not seem too venturous that a molecule 

 of which one half is electropositive, the other half electronegative, 

 not displaceable but capable of rotating freely, would turn its posi- 

 tive pole to the kathode and its negative to the anode. 



But I attach little importance to such speculations. It is quite 

 sufficient for me to know that in muscles, nerves, and electrical 

 organs, carriers of electromotive forces exist which the current 

 somehow directs, which are in relation to the vital activity of 

 these structures, and in electrical organs serve to explain their 

 enigmatical action. 



In the face of the profusion of questions regarding facts which 

 are here awaiting an answer, I consider it lost labour to indulge in 

 further conjectures. One can scarcely hope to penetrate more deeply 

 into the molecular mechanism of electromotive tissues until the 

 region of secondary electromotive phenomena has been explored in 

 every direction. 



1 Archiv fur Anatomie, Physiologie, etc., 1860, p. 673. 



2 Poggendorff's Annalen der Physik und Chemie, 1861, vol. cxiii. p. 565. 



