164 ELECTIUCITY ONLY A STIMULUS ? 



other stimulus, the nerve-protoplasm, and through ifc 

 effect muscular contraction. This it certainly does, 

 and it also produces all other effects which the mode- 

 rate and excessive action of stimuli do on living mat- 

 ter : it also produces a variety of electrical phenomena 

 which are not connected directly with life at all. But 

 I can find no experimental evidence, except that of 

 Wundt (see p. 1 39), which seems to show that electricity 

 (from without) can cause the muscular fibres to con- 

 tract independently of the nerves, and no quantitative 

 experiment at all showing that it can furnish, to any 

 measurable amount, the force for muscular work. 

 Under greater stimulus, we know, more work can be 

 done; but the relation between that increase is not 

 known, while the relation of the stimulus as a whole 

 to the action performed is infinitesimally small. 



Dr. V. Poore, in the " Practitioner " for Jan., 1873, 

 has called attention to the power of the galvanic cur- 

 rent in refreshing the muscles and removing the sensa- 

 tion of fatigue, as had been noticed already by 

 Haidenhain and Cyon. Dr. Poore found that when a 

 man was made to hold out a weight at arm's length, 

 the feeling of fatigue which quickly supervened was 

 at once removed on passing a mild galvanic current 

 through the nerves of the arm, and that, whereas he 

 could only support the weight for six minutes when 

 no electricity was used, he was able to support it for 

 more than double the time when the muscles were 

 refreshed now and again with the galvanic current. 

 Further, on testing the strength of the muscular con- 

 tractions, it was found to be considerably greater 

 when the galvanic current was being used. But no 



