Supposed Agency of Galvanism in transferring Colors, &c. 317 
purple hue, in consequence of some of the cochineal infusion having 
found its way through the coats of the bladder, and mixed with the 
litmus. The same experiment succeeded more slowly without the 
aid of the galvanic circle ; but it was greatly expedited with it, show- 
ing I think that the exertion of the agency of galvanism was the cause 
of all the phenomena of the experiment. 
To satisfy myself more fully, I filled two glasses with the infusion 
of litmus ; in one I placed a bladder having a small quantity of very 
dilate sulphuric acid, securely inclosed within it. In the other I pla- 
eed a bladder containing a weak solution of potassa. I filled a third 
glass with an infusion of cochineal, and placed in it an infusion of lit- 
mus. In Jess than twenty-four hours, I found changes had ensued in 
every glass. In the first the litmus had become red, while the acid 
within had assumed a similar color. In the second glass the litmus 
Was green, while the infusion of potassa presented the same color 
within the bladder. In the third glass the infusion of cochineal be- 
came more or less purple from the admixture of the litmus, while 
the infusion of litmus within the bladder-had also assimilated its color 
to that of the fluid without. In each glass there had evidently been 
established two currents, one passing from without to the fluids with- 
in the bladders, and the others from the enclosed fluids to the infu- 
sion without, and continuing to do so probably, till there was a com- 
plete assimilation of color both without and within the bladder. 
May not some process of this sort take place in the human body ? 
May not pure water, and the water of melons, reach the kidneys, by 
a similar electrical percolation? It appears as probable to me that 
this operation may ensue in the animal system, as that water of mel- 
ons when carried to the stomach, is discharged from the bladder in 
Wenty or thirty minutes after being swallowed, although conveyed to 
by the very circuitous route of the circulation. Would it not re- 
quite a longer time for the water to reach the bladder in this case, 
Provided it had first to pass into the duodenum, from thence to the 
small intestines, there to be converted into chyle, and by the lacteals 
conveyed to the thoracic duct, and thence conveyed to the subcla- 
Yean vein, and there enter the right auricle by the descending vena 
fava, and from thence to the right ventricle, and from thence to the 
ngs, and from them by the pulmonary arterjes-to the left auricle, 
and from that to the left ventricle, and from there by the aorta to the 
venal arteries, and thence to the kidneys, and after being secreted, to 
conveyed to the bladder by the uterus Can so complicated and 
“teutitous a process take place within twenty or thirty minutes? It 
