NERVOUS INFLUENCE. 20 



further, that as electricity is capable of exciting a nerve, and thus 

 producing contraction and sensation ; so heat, a chemical or 

 mechanical action, can be made to produce the same effects, and 

 that it would therefore be equally right to insist upon the identity 

 of heat or chemical action with the nervous force. That there is 

 an electric current produced in the muscles themselves, by the 

 chemical changes which take place, the result of the functions of 

 nutrition; that the nerves themselves are but conductors of the 

 current developed in the muscles to which they are nearest ; that 

 throughout the whole of the nervous system there is an ethereal 

 medium, which may have some particular arrangement in this 

 system as is admitted with respect to certain crystals. When 

 the organic molecules of the nerve are deranged by some cause, 

 the ether, or more correctly speaking, the nervous fluid, is thrown 

 into a certain state of vibration, which acting on the brain, pro- 

 duces sensation on the muscles, motion. This derangement or 

 vibration may be produced by an electric current, by other 

 stimulants, heat, chemical or mechanical action, in the same way 

 that it is naturally produced by the will. That the electric 

 current generated in the muscles, and always directed from the 

 interior to the exterior of the muscles, in its influence on the 

 nerves, only acts by putting into a state of vibration the particles 

 of ether or the nervous fluid. Such are the two theories on this 

 important question, which we leave without further remark to 

 the reader, since it would be out of place in a work, whose object 

 is more particularly to describe the curative effects of electricity, 

 to enter into more extended detail. 



