HISTORY OF GALVANISM. 57 



strengthens the pulse* and produces heat, the ne- 

 gative weakens it, and produces cold *. 



So far as I have been able to learn, few, if any, Remarks 

 of the experiments of Hitter have been repeated, e:rperi- 

 either in Enland or in France; a circumstance 



meuts> 





which is not a little remarkable, when we con- 

 sider that many of them are quite original, and 

 would lead to important theoretical deductions. 

 His language and manner of writing are, how- 

 ever, unfortunately obscure ; and he abounds so 

 much in hypothesis, that he has not obtained that 

 degree of attention to which he would seem to be 

 entitled, from his industry and ingenuity. It is 

 scarcely to be supposed that he could have been 

 mistaken respecting the effect of the secondary 

 pile, or that he would have invented a series of 

 facts, the fallacy of which might be so easily de- 

 tected. With respect to the experiments on the 

 voltaic pile, their authority is more doubtful; 

 they seem to have been performed with a manifest 

 view to a particular hypothesis ; some of them are 

 of an indeterminate nature, and we may imagine 

 that many are exaggerated, or even inaccurately 

 stated. 



The attention of the different experimentalists Biot's 



. .,, , . -. .,, ,, . nions re- 



Was still very much occupied with the comparative spec-ting 

 merits of the two hypotheses, the electrical and ^ "^al- 

 chemical ; generally speaking, the English seemed * a o n n ic ac * 

 to* incline to the latter, and the continental writers 



* Journ de Phys. Ivii. 401. 



