436 



Messrs. F. Gotch and G. J. Burch. 



the nerve suddenly failed, and it is interesting to note that this failure 

 was attended by inability of the organ to respond when a stimulus was 

 applied either to the nerve or to the organ substance. It has been 

 recently pointed out by Garten that if the electrical nerves of Torpedo 

 are divided in the living fish, and the fish examined nineteen days after- 

 wards, by which time degeneration of the peripheral portion of the 

 nerve has occurred, no response can be obtained from the organ by 

 any stimulus whether applied to the nerve or directly to the organ 



Fig. l. 



The upward curve in the lowest line is a record (No. 3012) of the single shock of 

 15 mm. of electrical organ evoked by a single excitation of the nerve. The 

 curve is to be read from left to right, the moment of excitation being indicated 

 by the commencement of the larger vibrations on the fine middle line. The 

 rate of movement is shown by the tuning-fork record on the upper line, each 

 complete oscillation of which is 0'002°. The electrometer terminals were con- 

 nected by a resistance of 26"6 ohms, which thus shunted a large proportion of 

 the organ effect. 



substance.* These results and the failure referred to in the present 

 instance support the view put forward in our previous paper, that the 

 only excitable structures in the organ are the nerve endings, the organ 

 discs apart from these nerves being in excitable, f 



The Analysis of the Photographic Records. 



The methods used for obtaining data for the analysis of the records 

 differed somewhat from those employed in our previous experiments 

 upon nerves. 



* Garten, 1 Centralbl. f. Physiol.,' vol. 13, No. 1, p. 1. 

 f ' Phil. Trans.,' B, vol. 187 (1896), p. 381. 



