PHENOMENA OF MUSCLE AND NEKVE. 279 



as to the cause of internal polarisation (du Bois-Reymond, No. VI, 

 Sect. 21). 



That galvanic polarisation is opposed to the polarising- current, 

 and thus must be, as du Bois-Reymond says, negative, is as much a 

 physical necessity as the principle of the conservation of energy, with 

 which in point of fact the polarisation law is in the most intimate 

 relationship ; on this account the prefix ' negative ' might be done away 

 with. But it was necessary for du Bois-Reymond, since he had arrived 

 at the surprising idea of calling the -f effect, observed by him, 

 'positive polarisation.' I do not find fault with the confusion 

 which is thus produced, on the ground that for twelve years I 

 have distinguished as positive and negative polarisation the polar- 

 isation of nerve at the positive and negative electrode ; for I am 

 not so presumptuous as to suppose that du Bois-Reymond has any 

 regard for the technical terms introduced by myself, the discovery of 

 which, according to him, my entire work consists of (see Sect. 21). 

 Nor can I ground my objection on the circumstance that du Bois- 

 Reymond once used these expressions with reference to the + and 

 electrodes, as Pfliiger indicates in a quotation 1 , as I have re- 

 marked" elsewhere 2 , for I cannot find the passage. It is not on this 

 account that the term 'positive polarisation' is a surprising one, but 

 because it represents the phenomenon as a reversal of ordinary 

 polarisation ; as if the galvanic current could produce in its circuit, 

 instead of the customary opposing forces, forces acting in the same 

 direction as itself, and this on a strictly comparable principle. 



That du Bois-Reymond is not far from holding this very opinion, 

 that he really holds, on the ground of his experiments, a ' reversed 

 polarisation ' as possible, follows from his whole treatise. This is 

 evident from the circumstance that he places this side by side with 

 the polarisation, supposed by him to be also reversed, which occurs 

 at the limiting surfaces between salt solution and water (du Bois- 

 Reymond, Sect. 4), or iron and zinc sulphate (Sect. 21, par. 9), quite 

 in accordance with the scheme of true polarisation. 



But if du Bois-Reymond had had the slightest doubt as to this 

 relationship, it would have been his duty, even on the assumption 

 that he was writing entirely for readers schooled in physics, to avoid 

 most carefully this expression. If, on approaching a magnet to a 

 conductor, it were observed that a current appeared in the latter 

 which must from its direction affect the magnet pole attractively, 



1 ' Untersuchungen iiber die Physiologie des Elektro tones,' p. 438. 

 2 See Pfliiger's ' Archiv,' vol. xxxi. p. 100. 



