HISTORY OF GALVANISM. 



Aldini. 



Circaud's 

 experi- 

 ments on 

 fibrine. 



the subject.* On the other hand, Aldini, the nephew 

 of Galvani, who now came into notice as an assi- 

 duous experimentalist, asserted that he was unable 

 to act upon the heart. In order to complete our 

 view of the experiments that relate to the action 

 of galvanism on the different parts of the nervous 

 system, I may mention, that Bichat, in his trea- 

 tise on life and death, informs us that he found 

 the nerves which are connected with the great 

 sympathetic, and with the ganglia, those which 

 are distributed to the organs of what he calls the 

 organic f unction s, to be very little acted upon by 

 this stimulus, so as indeed to be almost insensible 

 to it, when compared with its effects upon the 

 nerves which go to the voluntary muscles.f 



Circaud announced a discovery, which, if it 

 were fully confirmed, would prove of great impor- 

 tance in physiology, that the fibrine of the blood, 

 immediately after it leaves the vessels, may be 

 made to contract by the galvanic apparatus. De- 

 lametherie confirms the statement of Circaud, 

 from his own observations ; but the experiment has 

 not succeeded in this country, even although re- 

 peated in the most careful manner ; and when we 

 consider the difficulty and delicacy of the process, 

 we may be allowed, without impeaching the ve- 

 racity of the narrators, to entertain some doubts 

 on the subject. 1 



* Nouvelles Experiences Galvaniques, 1803. 

 f P. 336, et alibi. J Journ. de Phys. Iv. 402. 



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