Additional Notes. 45 1 



oxydating surface in larger quantity, and in a more con- 

 centrated state than before. By pursuing the same train of 

 operations, it is easy to see how the elec eric matter will con- 

 tinue to be accumulated in edch successive pair of plates, 

 until, by suliiclcni repetition, it may be made to exist, in the 

 zinc end of tiie pile, in any assigned degree of force. 



The analogy between Galvanic phenomena and many 

 circumstances connected with muscular action, and other 

 processes of vitality, began, several years ago, to make an 

 impression on the minds of many who engaged in the pur- 

 suit of this science. The appearance of Galvanic action in 

 living animals, such as the Torpedo, &c. was found strongly 

 to confirm this impression. Organized beings contain all the 

 substances necessary for the formation of Galvanic arrange- 

 ments; and chemical changes are continually going on is 

 different parts of the living body, which are probably con- 

 nected with variations in their states of electricity. These 

 circumstances, together with the original Galvanic fact, of 

 the pi eduction of muscular contraction wiicn the influence 

 ■was applied, and the dependence of irritability, and even life, 

 upon the oxygenation of the blood, served to strengthen the 

 analogy. 



These speculations seem to have been reduced almost to 

 demonstration by some recent experiments. Professor Al*- 

 DINT, of Bologna, is supposed to have decisively shown, that 

 a vital attraction subsists between a nerve and muscle. 1 he 

 suspended sciatic nerves of a frog, after detaching the spine, 

 being brought near the intercostal muscles of a dog, wd)ilc 

 tlie assistant who held the frog, with his other hand, touched 

 the muscles of the thigh of the dog (tiius forming a circle) ; 

 in this situation the suspended nerves approached and came 

 into contact with the muscle, as evidently as a silken thread 

 is attracted by sealing-wax. But a still more important fact 

 was that of exciting contractions by making a circle of nerves 

 and muscles, of different animals, without employing any 

 metallic exciter or conductors. M. Circaud found that 

 the coagulum of blood recendy drawn from a living animal 

 is susceptible of the Galvanic stimulus, as appeared fi om ( on- 

 tractlons evidently excited by the pile of Volta. And M. 

 Garve formed a kind of pile, by alternate pieces ot muscle 

 and brain, with the intervention of pasteboard or cloth, which 

 produced, in some small degree, similar phenomena with those 

 pf the common pile. 



