370 FRAGMENTS OF SCIENCE 



propagates itself before your eyes to the other end, the 

 onward march of the disturbance being announced by the 

 development of heat and fumes along the line of propaga- 

 tion. In some such way the molecules of the nerves are 

 successively overthrown; and if Mr. Gore could only de- 

 vise some means of winding up his exhausted antimony, 

 as the nutritive blood winds up exhausted nerves, the 

 comparison would be complete. The subject may be 

 summed up, as Du Bois-Reymond has summed it up, by 

 reference to the case of a whale struck by a harpoon in 

 the tail. If the animal were 70 feet long, a second would 

 elapse before the disturbance could reach the brain. But 

 the impression after its arrival has to diffuse itself and 

 throw the brain into the molecular condition necessary to 

 consciousness. Then, and not till then, the command to 

 the tail to defend itself is shot through the motor nerves. 

 Another second must elapse before the command can 

 reach the tail, so that more than two seconds transpire 

 between the infliction of the wound and the muscular 

 response of the part wounded. The interval required for 

 the kindling of consciousness would probably more than 

 suffice for the destruction of the brain by lightning, or 

 even by a rifle-bullet. Before the organ can arrange it- 

 self it may, therefore, be destroyed, and in such a case 

 we may safely conclude that death is painless. 



The experiences of common life supply us with copi- 

 ous instances of the liberation of vast stores of muscular 

 power by an infinitesimal "priming" of the muscles by 

 the nerves. We all know the effect produced on a ''ner- 

 vous" organization by a slight sound which causes affright. 

 An aerial wave, the energy of which would not reach a 



