24 INFLUENCE 



occurred to this eminent philosopher that the products of 

 secretion might be due to electricity of low intensity, and he 

 even suggested the nature of the secretions, as to acidity or 

 alkalinity, as a test of the species of electric fluid accumulated 

 in each organ. Thus, the milk, the perspiration, the urine, as 

 being all acid, should upon this principle be considered as 

 proceeding from organs in an electro-positive state; while the 

 bile and different serous secretions, as containing a free alkali, 

 would argue an electro-negative state of the parts from which 

 they are discharged. Matteucci has espoused this theory, and 

 added the important observation, that the animal principles 

 occurring in the several secreted fluids, abound in elements of 

 corresponding electrical relations ; or that in the acid, oxygen 

 and azote, in the alkaline, carbon and hydrogen, are chiefly to 

 be found. It will be seen, on reference to our first chapter, 

 that the same theory has been promulgated in Italy by M. 

 Orioli ; and upon it, he has endeavoured to establish a method 

 of correctly applying electricity for a restoration of these organs 

 to a healthy action, when in a state of disease. 



Dr. Wilson Philip, however, is unquestionably the individual 

 who has espoused this theory with most zeal, and illustrated it 

 with most success. Arguing, that as the Voltaic current excites 

 the functions of the sensitive and motor nerves, it also may exer- 

 cise a similar influence over those nerves which are distributed 

 to the organs of secretion, Dr. Philip endeavoured to establish 

 the truth of this opinion in the case of the gastric juice. He 

 divided the nervi vagi in a rabbit, and found that the digestive 

 process was stopped. The respiration was thus immediately 

 rendered laborious, nausea and fruitless attempts to vomit super- 

 vened, and the animals finally died, apparently of suffocation. 

 Upon opening their stomachs, the parsley with which they had 

 been fed was found quite unaltered. The same experiment was 

 then performed upon other rabbits, with this difference, that 

 galvanic currents were sent to the stomach, by applying one of 

 the poles of a small pile to a slip of tinfoil rolled round the 

 lower ends of the divided nerves, and the other to a disc of silver 

 laid upon the epigastrium. In all these cases dyspnaea and 



