26* Mr. Carlisle's Lecture 
perhaps some combination obtains which decomposes the 
water. 
The four separated limbs of a recent frog were skinned, and 
immersed in different fluids ; viz. No. 1 , in a phial containing 
six ounces by measure of a saturated aqueous solution of liver 
of sulphur made with potash ; No. 2, in a diluted acetic acid, 
consisting of one drachm of concentrated acid to six of water ; 
No. 3, in a diluted alkali, composed of caustic vegetable alkali 
one drachm, of water six ounces ; No. 4, in pure distilled water. 
The phials were all corked, and the temperature of their 
contents was 46®. 
The limb contained in the phial No. 1, after remaining 
twenty minutes, had acquired a pale red colour, and the muscles 
were highly irritable. 
The limb in No. 2, after the same duration, had become 
rigid, white, and swollen ; it was not at all irritable. By re- 
moving the limb into a diluted solution of vegetable alkali, the 
muscles were relaxed, but no signs of irritability returned. 
No. 3, under all the former circumstances, retained its pre- 
vious appearances, and was irritable, but less so than No. 1. 
No. 4 had become rigid, and the final contraction had taken 
place. 
Other causes of the loss of muscular irritability occur in 
pathological testimonies, some examples of which may not be 
ineligible for the present subject. Workmen whose hands are 
unavoidably exposed to the contact of white lead, are liable to 
what is called a palsy in the hands and wrists, from a torpidity 
of the muscles of the fore arm. This affection seems to be 
decidedly local, because, in many instances, neither the brain, 
nor the other members, partake of the disorder ; and it oftenest 
