188 MUSCULAR CURRENT. LECT. IX. 



cuit is much more considerable than in that of frogs. I 

 have proved that the muscular current always becomes 

 more rapidly weak, and ceases sooner, with pigeons than 

 with frogs. 



Muscular Piles in Gases. Lastly, I have to state that the 

 current produced by a certain number of muscular elements 

 had the same intensity, and was of the same duration, when 

 the elements were placed in hydrogen, oxygen, carbonic 

 acid, and air more or less rarefied. 



Sources of the muscular Current. From all that we have 

 stated in this lecture, it follows that the existence of an 

 electric current in the muscles has been well demonstrated, 

 and that its principal laws are established. The origin of 

 this current resides in the electric conditions which are 

 produced by the chemical actions of the nutrition of the 

 muscle. The blood charged with oxygen, and the muscu- 

 lar fibre, which becomes transformed on contact with this 

 liquid, compose the elements of a pile : they are the liquid 

 acid and zinc. In the normal condition of the muscle, 

 there can only be molecular currents produced by the for- 

 mation and destruction of opposite electrical conditions in 

 the same points ; but if a great number of points of the 

 muscular fibre be put, by means of a good conductor, in 

 communication with others of a different nature, which do 

 not suffer the same chemical action on the part of the 

 blood, the electric current should then circulate. It is 

 this fact, furnished to us by experiment, which proves at 

 the same time the development of electricity in the living 

 muscle, and the impossibility for the electric current to 

 circulate in the masses of this muscle in the natural con- 

 dition. 



Liebig's Hypothesis untenable. Liebig, finding a free 

 acid in the substance of the muscle, and knowing that the 

 blood and lymph are alkaline, fancied that he could ex- 



