166 
MUSCULAR ELECTRIC CURRENT. 
touch the following, the faces of each turning the same way, 
and the interior of one coming into contact with the exterior 
of the next ; so that one of the extremities of the pile was 
formed of the interior of the muscle, while the other ex- 
tremity was formed of the surface. The deviation [of the 
galvanometer] amounted to 15, 20, 30, 40, 60 degrees, 
according to the number of half-thighs By experi- 
menting on warm-blooded animals, such as pigeons, chickens, 
oxen, sheep, &c., ample evidence was obtained to prove, that 
whenever the interior of the muscle of a recently killed animal 
is, by the aid of a conducting substance, brought into con- 
tact with the surface, an electrical current is established, 
directed from the interior to the surface, the intensity of 
which varies with the animal, and is increased in proportion 
to the number of elements disposed in the pile Mat- 
teucci next instituted a series of experiments on living 
animals, the general results of which were the same as those 
on animals recently killed, the current in all cases moving 
from the interior of the muscle to its surface, or more gene- 
rally from the interim; of the muscle to any conducting sub- 
stance in communication with that surface.” He thus sums 
up the principal results of his experiments on the muscular 
current: “ 1. The intensity of the current varies for cold- 
blooded animals in proportion to the temperature of the 
medium in which they have lived for a certain time. 2. Its 
duration after death is so much the less as the animal is more 
elevated in the scale of creation. 3. The intensity varies 
with the degree of nutrition of the muscle, and it is always 
strongest in those muscles which are gorged with blood 
and inflamed. 4. It is altogether independent of the in- 
tegrity and activity of the motor and sensorial nervous sys- 
tem. 5. The influence of narcotic poisons is null, or very 
feeble, on this current. 
Amongst the different gaseous poisons, sulphuretted hydro- 
gen acts in a remarkable manner in weakening the intensity 
of the muscular current, the direction of which is in every 
case the same. More recently, M. Matteucci has added 
some further interesting and important information on the 
subject of the muscular current. He has obtained signs 
of tension at the two extremities of his muscular piles by the 
aid of the condenser. He has also obtained electro-chemical 
decomposition by the current ; and by a great number of 
experiments he has established that the intensity of the cur- 
rent is in proportion to the activity of respiration, and that 
is proportionate to the rank of the animal in the scale of 
creation, whilst its duration after death varies in an opposite 
