260 APPENDIX. [No. XVII. 



however, good principles could be effectively instilled, they would control 

 every action, and prove far more useful. 



" Electro-Noemics also show that to produce a strong effect in future 

 actions, a strong impression must be left on the brain. From this cause 

 punishment should be inflicted upon a man in a healthy, vigorous condi- 

 tion, and neither ill-fed nor debased in energy ; otherwise the impression 

 would be transient or evanescent, and would not deter the party from the 

 commission of future crime. Electro-Noemics also indicate that slight and 

 proportionate punishment invariably following crime, would have more 

 effect than severer punishment, with less chance of its infliction." 



From the foregoing summary of Mr. Smee's book, it appears to con- 

 tain matter interesting to other classes of readers as well as electricians 

 and physiologists ; but we believe that the time is distant when legislators 

 or philanthropists will discuss questions of social economy or politics in an 

 electro-biological point of view. Still, we are willing to accept the work 

 as another contribution towards an inquiry that has long engaged the 

 attention of philosophers : biology, the science of life, is a subject of per- 

 manent interest ; and if a writer do no more than provoke discussion, he 

 may do that which will eventually elicit truth. 



We here close our notice of Mr. Smee's book with an enumeration of 

 its further contents points of the investigation into which we have not 

 thought it necessary to enter. They are Electro-bio-Dynamics, or the 

 forces produced in the living body ; Bio-Electrolysis, or the changes taking 

 place in the human body; Electro- Biology of Cells, or the relation of 

 electricity to growth, nutrition, and circulation ; and last, Electro-Thera- 

 peutics and Pathology. 



No. XVII. 



LECTURE ON ELECTRO-BIOLOGY; OR, THE VOLTAIC ME- 

 CHANISM OF MAN. Delivered by ALFRED SMEE at the London 

 Institution. ( The Lancet,' April 21st, 1849.) 



THE subject of my present lecture is Electro -Biology, which literally 

 means neither more nor less than the relation of electricity to the vital 

 functions. Now, systematic writers divide the vital functions into two 

 great classes into those of animal life, and into those of organic 

 life. 



The functions of animal life will particularly occupy our attention 

 this evening; and for their consideration, we shall have to study the 

 apparatus by which the animal receives impressions from the external 

 world, transmits them to the brain, registers them, combines them, and 

 acts, not only upon the immediate impressions, but also upon those which 

 it has received at former periods. 



For the manifestation of the functions of animal life, we require a 

 central parenchyma or brain, a peripheral or body, the two being con- 

 nected together by a peculiar tissue called "nerve-fibre;" and at both 

 situations a proper supply of bright arterial blood is requisite, for the 

 production of the phenomena of life. If we look to purely physical 



