39 CURRENT FORCE. CHAP. IV. §. I. 



necessary to assume, that immediately after the 

 separation of the secreted product (the acid) from 

 the blood had taken place, that they then imme- 

 diately recombined; and not only so, but that the 

 blood, in direct opposition to the well-known fact of 

 its alkaline characters, must be acid in order to 

 account for the effects produced. It would there- 

 fore appear, that no groimds exist for believing that 

 the results obtained in the living animal can be 

 considered as entirely dependent upon the mere 

 reaction of the heterogeneous fluids upon each other, 

 upon their eomhination for example; and without 

 stopping to adduce more arguments against this 

 supposition, let us now proceed to compare the 

 results with another class of phenomena, viz. with 

 those actions which take place in a voltaic circle 

 where decomposition is effected. 



It will be better to confine our attention to the 

 actions which take place in the exciting cell of a 

 voltaic circle where the power originates, and with- 

 draw our minds for the present entirely fi:om the 

 changes which take place in the decomposing cell of 

 the battery where polar decompositions are effected: 

 the principal object being to ascertain whether, 

 during the decomposition of a compound, or during 

 the separation of an acid from an alkali, the same 

 effects are produced upon the galvanometer as 

 occurs during the comiination of an acid with an 

 alkali. 



Let us take an elementary circle, zinc, platinum. 



