268 



NATURE 



\7uly 27, 1876 



by observers who have for long been content to work on, 

 httle cheered by recognition by the great body of physi- 

 ologists, but finding their reward in honest search after 

 truth. 



Among such Dr. Radclifife has for some years main- 

 tained the proposition that the contraction of muscle is 

 not an acquired condition determined by the reaction of 

 a vital property of irritability with certain stimuli, but a 

 natural condition resumed after the removal of an elec- 

 trical charge by which extension had been previously 

 effected and maintained. In this view, for ideas re- 

 lated to the older terms "vitality" and "contractility," 

 ideas related to electricity and elasticity must be substi- 

 tuted. Again, whereas the electrical phenomena mani- 

 fested in muscle and nerve have been generally regarded 

 — notably by Du Bois-Reymond— as phenomena of cur- 

 rent electricity. Dr. Radcliffe has held that so far as they 

 are functionally important, they are phenomena of static 

 electricity, of charge and discharge. 



This contention is once more set before us in the book 

 just published under the title heading this notice, with 

 many new arguments and with several material changes 

 in the interpretation of facts. 



In former papers Dr. Radcliffe imagined muscle and 

 nerve to be charged with electricity after the manner of a 

 Leyden jar ; the coat (neurilemma or sarcolemma) of each 

 fibre doing the work of a dielectric. Many serious diffi- 

 culties opposed the acceptance of this notion, and now 

 another, certainly much more accordant with the facts, is 

 substituted. According to this later notion, the condition 

 of each muscular or nervous fibre while alive and at rest 

 is one and the same with that of an electromotive element, 

 such as a Daniell's cell, in the state of open circuit. In 

 the polarity of the electromotive element is found the ex- 

 planation of the apparent existence of a current running 

 from longitudinal to transverse or cut surface, in mutual 

 repulsions of molecules charged with electricity, the ex- 

 planation of the lengthening, after contraction, of fibres at 

 rest ; in variations of electrical charge, and in hypo- 

 thetical closures of circuit the explanation of the con- 

 traction of muscle, of the return of a perfectly elastic 

 substance to the form from which it had been distorted 

 by the charge. Dr. Radchffe argues that the instan- 

 taneous extra and induced currents set up at the opening 

 and closing of circuits are important agents in discharge, 

 and that such instantaneous currents " may be through 

 inductive interaction greatly intensified a.nd might prove 

 to be very powerful " if they were not in great measure 

 lost by being " short-circuited " within the body. As 

 regards the mode in which circuits may be closed and 

 nerve-muscle discharge caused by the will no clear expla- 

 nation is set forth, though it is remarked that " there is 

 no difficulty in beUeving that electricity, the slave of the 

 will in this case, may have been ordered out of the way " 

 and muscular electricity left to its own devices. 



This theory of nerve-muscle charge and discharge 

 finds important outcome in the book, having application 

 to inhibition, rhythmical movements, rigor mortis, the 

 influence of artificial electricity on vital motion, the work 

 of the blood in vital motion, and many reactions of 

 disease. The chapters relating to these are all most 

 interesting and full of valuable suggestions, but our 

 space will not allow of any analysis of them. A chap- 



ter on the " Electrophysics of Vital Motion " demands 

 however a few remarks. Here are recorded observa- 

 tions on the electrical condition of living protoplasm, 

 and here are made inductions to the following effect : 

 (i) that there are no more indications of intrinsic 

 development of electricity in vessels containing living 

 protoplasm, of amcebaj and the like, than in vessels 

 containing distilled water ; (2) that living and lifeless 

 bodies are equally under the sway of an electrical poten- 

 tial which varies from hour to hour, so that they are 

 differently charged from hour to hour ; (3) that charge 

 will produce expansion which will be greater in aeriform 

 bodies than in bodies which are fluid like water, and 

 greater in these latter than in bodies which are of th2 

 nature of solids ; (4) that the expansions will operate 

 unequally in bodies which (like amcebae) are made up 

 unequally of portions which are more or less solid, and 

 portions which are more or less liquid. 



Amoeboid movements are therefore, " as far as their 

 electrophysics are concerned," the results of variations of 

 electric potential. The parenthesis is important in free- 

 ing the author from the charge of forgetting that there 

 may be other forces at work. Granting even that " elec- 

 tric potential " may mean the sum of the operation of a 

 number of cosmical influences — of heat, of gravitation, of 

 lunar and planetary perturbations ; all extrinsic, all vary- 

 ing at any point from hour to hour — and this is granting 

 a great deal — there are still left to be considered all the 

 intrinsic influences which may affect molecules and de- 

 termine movement, such as osmose, chemical affinity, 

 colloid dynamis, and the like. Dr. Radcliffe's colligation 

 is as follows : certain movements are observed to take 

 place in small bodies composed of a mixture of semi-fluid 

 protoplasm with more solid matter ; it is conceivable that 

 variations of electrical charge may affect these unequally 

 and produce movement ; certain variations of electrical 

 potential are going on at the same time and in the same 

 place in which the bits of protoplasm are moving ; the 

 bits of protoplasm do not generate or possess independent 

 or original electricity ; therefore the movements are 

 probably produced by the variations of charge conse- 

 quent on the variations of potential. Surely much more 

 than the "hint" which the author finds in the coinci- 

 dence is necessary for the establishment of wide induc- 

 tions. 



Fortunately the position taken with reference to the 

 " electrophysics " of nerve and muscle rests upon a much 

 firmer ground of observation and inference. The position 

 is worthy of attentive study, and the argument generally 

 commends itself to our acceptance. At least it invites 

 further examination, and offers many possibilities of proof 

 or trial by collateral observation. We may confidently 

 hope to see the original and acute reasoning of the author 

 generally acknowledged, and, better still, justified and am- 

 plified by future followers and observers. W. M. O. 



FEISTMANTEL OiV THE BOHEMIAN 

 COAL BEDS 



Studun in Gebiete des Kohlengebirges voti Bohmen. Von 

 Mdr. Ottokar Feistmantel. (Prag, 1874.) 



AMONG the additions which extended research is 

 every day making to the stock of our geological 

 knowledge, none are perhaps so welcome as those which 



