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though to demonstrate this has been one of the most difficult and delicate 

 problems of science. The blood is an alkaline fluid, while the juice of the 

 flesh is acid, and the two liquids are only separated by the thin walls of the 

 vessels. By the action of these fluids there must be in every mass of muscle 

 myriads of electric currents. Matteucci has proved that currents of electricity 

 are circulating in the frames of all animals. The smallest shreds of muscular 

 tissue have been proved by Dubois Raymond to manifest currents, the longi- 

 tudinal section being always positive to the transverse section. 



Every cell in the human body is an organ which, under proper stimulus of 

 electro-chemic energy, absorbs, secretes or excretes elements suitable to the 

 function it performs in the living economy. 



When the blood passes from the capillaries into the veins it is in a negative 

 condition, having parted with the greater portion ot atmospheric energj'. It 

 travels slowly in consequence of loss of energy, but the increase in number 

 and the constantly widening channels of the veins offer little resistance to it& 

 passage, and thus facilitate its return. 



In traversing the circuit of circulation there are many changes in the mole- 

 cular arrangements of the elements composing the blood. This causes seem- 

 ing losses and apparent gains, but if we examine these from an electro-chemic 

 standpoint, and with due consideration of the digestive supply, we shall find 

 that they consist in rearrangement, and wherever an element is given up to the 

 tissues its loss to the blood stream is supplied from some other organ, before 

 the circuit is completed. 



Thus we can account for all of the elements made use of in the mainten- 

 ance of the system, and know the source from whence they come. 



When venous blood leaves the heart to enter the lungs for revitalization, it 

 has in its composition all the elements of arterial blood, except the energy 

 which the latter had received from the atmosphere, and to regain which ven- 

 ous blood returns to the lungs. For without this energy which passes from 

 the atmosphere to the blood there could be no reduction of food elements in 

 the blood stream, they would remain unchanged — their stored energy could 

 not be released because their bonds of chemical union would remain unbroken. 



The human organism, as a whole, is a vast electro-chemic laboratory, where- 

 in are generated electro-chemic forces whose action sustains the life of the 

 body, keeping its fluids in circulation. 



These forces remain vital through constant interchange with those of the 

 atmosphere; the point of this interchange is the lungs. The electro-chemic 

 forces of the body are liberated through reduction of food elements. 



The atmospheric electro-chemic energy is generated in the lungs by mole- 

 cular rearrangement and chemical change of atmospheric gases. The energy 

 in the human body is negative to that of the atmosphere, hence there is 

 mutual attraction and circulation of energy between them; this constitutes the 



