326 THE SO-CALLED SECONDARY ELECTROMOTIVE 



has so often proved a source of danger *, mast, in accordance with 

 the above-disclosed law, more or less impair the development of the 

 + after-current, in the case of abterminal (from dead to living-) 

 direction of current, so that it would appear to be favoured in the 

 case of atterminal direction of current, i.e. a direction like that 

 of the excitation wave. 



There is, therefore, no subject in the whole range of electro- 

 physiology in which the connection of the phenomena is more 

 transparent than that of the ' secondary electromotive phenomena,' 

 which now extend to the extrapolar region. Du Bois-B/eymond's 

 ' curiosity'' as to what ' auxiliary hypothesis ' I shall advance to dis- 

 pose of his positive polarisation-currents, will now be fully satisfied. 

 The question, how far it is true that * all that I have discovered 

 concerning electrotonus ' has * been exploded,' that { the elucidation 

 of electrotonus must be approached anew,' and, finally, that I 

 have been * compelled ' to ' import some changes into my scheme/ 

 as to this everyone can now judge for himself. Happily none 

 of these suggestions are true. The confusion which the mole- 

 cular theory caused, in that it overlooked, whilst expatiating, what 

 was most obvious, is luckily done away with now in this department 

 of the subject, as it has long been in other departments, and every- 

 thing has so turned out as to furnish fresh support to my expla- 

 nation of the nature of the 'phenomena of animal electricity. When 

 du Bois-Reymond deplores that he did not, in 1867, disclose to me 

 the fact ' that there is positive polarisation in the intrapolar region,' 

 because then ' the course of science in this direction would have 

 been different, and perhaps more fruitful,' I can only agree with him, 

 for then, possibly, we should have come to an understanding years 

 ago as to this ' positive polarisation,' and du Bois-Reymond would 

 have allowed the molecular theory, of which this is the last prop, to 

 fall. 



The molecular theory owes its production to the error of fact 

 that uninjured muscles show as strong a muscle -current at their 

 natural cross-section, as injured muscles do at their artificial cross- 

 sections. When this was found to be an error, the theory was not 

 given up, but the mischievous compromise of ' parelectronomy ' was 

 invented. Then, when I found the total absence of current in 

 uninjured tissues, and parelectronomy no longer sufficed, (the ' cold 

 hypothesis ' brought to its aid being false as to its facts,) still the 



1 See for instance Pfltiger, ' Archiv,' vol. zvi. p. 243. 



