IS NERVE FORCE ELECTRICITY? 127 



that is meant a mere chemical slow combustion, such 

 as Liebig at first supposed to occur in the muscles, it 

 is quite untenable, as the nerve is a slow-growing 

 tissue, and is incapable of undergoing such changes, 

 and, as a matter of fact, is not so consumed. These 

 objections, however, would not apply, if by chemical 

 we understand those changes sui generis in the proto- 

 plasm, called by him and Fletcher vital ; in fact, it is 

 a postulate of life, that changes involving consumption 

 and regeneration of protoplasm be constantly taking 

 place. It would, however, be necessary in that case 

 that the protoplasm should be continuous, by however 

 thin a thread, and always terminate in contact with 

 the protoplasm of the part to be influenced, because 

 vital action cannot be transferred to the smallest 

 distance. Beale's anatomy of the nerves, and with 

 their termination in loops, is fatal to this theory, if 

 vis nervosa influences any part with which the nerves 

 are not in continuous contact. The first theory viz., 

 that it is a specific or peculiar molecular force, easily 

 transformable into electricity and heat, but yet not 

 electricity, is treated by Dr. Beale with a degree of 

 scorn which I am at a loss to understand. He says it 

 is a very odd thing that people should have no difficulty 

 in referring the phenomena of the nerve current to a 

 specific mode of force correlated with heat and electri- 

 city, while they turn up their noses at the idea of 

 vitality depending on "some equally undiscovered 

 form of force having no connection with primary 

 energy or motion " (" Monthly Microscopical Journal," 

 1872, p. 177). It is certainly very strange that he should 

 not see the vast difference between his revival of the 



