248 Electricity and Galvanism, 



stomach, for the pneumogastric nerves, at least in man, cannot, 

 from their anatomical distribution, explain this. Is it improbable, 

 I would venture to suggest, that the ganglionic nerves may be more 

 immediately concerned? Does the positive current pass from the 

 solar plexus to the stomach, and a negative current to the liver ; 

 or do the organic nerves alone cause the latter, and the pneumogastric 

 the positive current? All here is doubt and uncertainty, and such 

 must remain, until more careful investigations have cleared up the 

 obscurity. All that is certain is — 



1st. That an electric current does exist between the stomach and 

 liver, which nearly ceases on division of the nerves, and completely 

 so with the death of the animal. 



2ndly. That this current is competent to the evolution of sufficient 

 free acid in the stomach to enable digestion to go on, an equivalent 

 of soda being determined to the liver. 



3rdly. That cutting off the nervous supply equally arrests digestion 

 and stops the electric current. 



4thly. That on allowing an artificially excited current to enter the 

 stomach, after division of the nerves, the chemical changes necessary 

 to digestion reappear. 



An Italian philosopher of celebrity, Signor Orioli, has hazarded a 

 remarkable theory, which assumes that all the manifestations of life 

 are actually dependent upon a series of galvanic combinations, exist- 

 ing in every organ in the body. He indeed regards every glandular 

 organ especially, as made up of a series of such combinations, and 

 developing different polarities ; he thus assumes that the stomach, 

 kidneys, and skin, are by such an arrangement rendered energetically 

 electro-positive, whilst the liver and general expanse of mucous 

 membrane are as powerfully electro-negative. He goes further, and 

 has founded a sort of system of therapeutics on these views ; for, 

 believing that disease depends upon an excessive, diminished, or 

 abnormal excitation of the electric polarities of the respective organs, 

 he proposes to treat their several morbid conditions by artificially 

 removing their unnaturally electric conditions. Orioli' s views differ 

 from the very remarkable ones promulgated by Meissner, who fancied 

 that during respiration the blood became charged with electricity, 

 which was then distributed by the par vagum and sympathetic nerves 



