No. XVI.] APPENDIX. 257 



connection be maintained; and that a proper exciting fluid, or bright 

 arterial blood, be distributed to each part." 



Such is Mr. Smee's view of the living battery : we come next to his 

 detail of the mode of action. For this he proposes the term Electro- 

 Aisthenics, or a study of the various organs of sensation; and these 

 are comprised under a new terminology : Opsaisthenics, of sight ; 

 Ousaisthenics, of hearing ; Gumaisthenics, of taste ; Rhinaisthenics, of 

 smell ; Ccenaisthenics, of touch ; and last, a sixth sense, Somaisthenics, or 

 bodily feeHng. Blood and nerve being present in a normal condition, the 

 integrity of the various actions is assured. The eye, for example, is 

 stimulated by light, leading to the inference of a photo-voltaic current. 

 By means of various chemical solutions, the author establishes the fact 

 artificially. " Upon exposing," he writes, " the apparatus to intense light, 

 the galvanometer was instantly deflected, showing that the light had set 

 in motion a voltaic current, which I propose to call a photo-voltaic circuit." 

 The eye itself is tested by thrusting a needle through the choroid coat, 

 and another into a neighbouring muscle, and passing the animal experi- 

 mented on suddenly from darkness into light, when, if carefully conducted, 

 a slight deflection of the galvanometer is the result. With the retina and 

 blood of the choroid coat for the positive pole of the organ of vision, we 

 find the iris and muscles of the eyeball and eyelids proposed for the 

 negative. The phenomena of hearing are accounted for in a somewhat 

 similar way; the poles being the auditory nerve and adjacent muscles. 

 The specific action can only be determined by showing that sound effects a 

 voltaic OTUTent; and then how various are its modifications ! " The range 

 of soxmds appreciated by the human ear consists of about 12J octaves, and 

 perhaps extends to the 32nd of a note in those endowed with most 

 perfect hearing. From this it follows that the human ear can distinguish 

 about 3200 sounds ; and therefore it would require 8200 poles for that 

 purpose." With respect to the organ of taste, Mr. Smee assumes the 

 gustatory nerve as the positive pole ; and states that " we may make a 

 voltaic battery in which the circuit shall be determined by savours, in very 

 different methods. For instance, if we place a little persalt of iron, with 

 two platina poles, in a V-shaped tube, and then drop a little infusion of 

 meat into one side, a voltaic circuit will instantly be produced." Next in 

 order comes the sense of smell : and here the author supposes that odorous 

 substances determine a voltaic current, by " facilitating the reduction of 

 the highly-oxygenated blood ; " and that the olfactory nerves constitute 

 the positive pole of the battery. He then proceeds to establish a sense of 

 feeHng, Cosnaisthenics, as distinct from Somaisthenics, or bodUy feeling. 

 The former, he says, " is that feeling by which we derive certain impres- 

 sions from without, and is never in oru." understandings confounded with 

 a bodily feeling, or that sense by which we estimate the changes taking 

 place within our own frame." Thus Ooenaisthenics may be excited by 

 heat or cold, or by mechanical or other pressure ; and it is possible to 

 imitate this effect by varieties of voltaic apparatus. But it would appear 

 that, in experimenting on the living body, muscular power must be 

 exerted before the galvanometer marks any trace of a current, as will be 

 undei-stood from Mr. Smee's statement. The subject under test was a 

 " black rabbit, into the mctsseter of which," he observes, ■" I introduced one 

 sewing needle, whilst the second was placed in the subcutaneous cellular 



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