CHAP. Vllt. MDSCDLAE AND NERVOUS TISSUES. 83 



regard to the fibre itself. It is therefore necessary 

 to point out with what class of phenomena the facts 

 appear to be the most nearly allied. 



Nutrition, I believe, may be referred to the same 

 class of actions as secretion, the tissue, muscular or 

 nerve tissue, being deposited as a secreted product. 

 These actions, secretion, I have already considered 

 as identical with those which occur in the decomposing 

 cell of a voltaic circle, and to be Polar in their 

 nature. The question, however, whether the secreted 

 product and the Hood can, when separated, maintain 

 their peculiar electrical states I have not yet ex- 

 amined; but in regard to the hlood, I believe that 

 that fluid may, from what I have occasionally ob- 

 served in my former experiments, and confirmed as 

 they are by the results obtained by Vassali Eandi. 

 At any rate, the improbability of the elements of 

 compounds undergoing decomposition in a decom- 

 posing cell of a voltaic circle, retaining their 

 peculiar electrical states, would be no positive 

 argument against this supposition; the state and 

 condition of the liquids in animals, in regard to 

 their fluidity, and the conditions under which the 

 changes occur, present great differences compared to 

 those that take place in ordinary voltaic decom- 

 positions; consequently, it may be reasonably sup- 

 posed, that under the circumstances in which the 

 changes occur in the animal body, the electrical states 

 of the solids and fluids are not immediately lost. 

 From these facts, I feel no difficulty or hesitation in 



