PRESENT STATE OF ORGANIC ELECTRICITY. 329 



former. He concluded therefore, along with Becquerel, that 

 during muscular contraction there is an evolution of electri- 

 city. But the galvanometer, even when a pile of contracting 

 limbs is included in the circuit, gives no decided indication of 

 a current. Matteucci, indeed, has latterly denied the evolu- 

 tion of electricity during muscular contraction, and is inclined 

 to attribute the secondary contraction to another cause. Du 

 Bois Eeymond concludes from his investigations, that during 

 contraction the ordinary muscular current is much diminished, 

 if indeed it does not altogether disappear. 



The contraction produced by a single act of excitement of 

 a striped muscle is momentary. Any change, therefore, of its 

 ordinary electric condition during such a contraction is too 

 brief to be satisfactorily indicated by the needle. But if a 

 muscle be included in the circuit of the galvanometer, and if, 

 as soon as the deflected needle comes to rest under the influ- 

 ence of the ordinary muscular current, the muscle be put into 

 a state of continuous contraction, or tetanus, by means of 

 strychnine, or an interrupted electric current, the needle will 

 pass backwards beyond zero, and oscillate unsteadily on the 

 negative side till the muscular contractility is exhausted. That 

 this negative deflection is not the result of any influence 

 exerted by the current employed to tetanise the muscles, is 

 shown by the fact that it occurs even when precautions are 

 taken to prevent such an influence ; and also by its occurrence 

 when the tetanus is produced by strychnine, and other non- 

 electric means. 



If, again, an arrangement be made so as to enable the gal- 

 vanometer circuit to be closed as soon only as the tetanus has 

 commenced, the needle will be found, during the contraction, 

 only to approach zero more or less, instead of passing to the 

 negative side, indicating therefore a diminution of the ordinary 

 muscular current. 



That this diminution in the ordinary muscular current is 



