chemical Agencies of Electricity . S3 
electrified for four hours with like results, faded and died.* 
The facts shew that the electrical powers of decomposition 
act even upon living vegetable matter ; and there are some 
phenomena which seem to prove that they operate likewise 
upon living animal systems. When the fingers, after having 
been carefully washed with pure water, are brought in con- 
tact with this fluid in the positive part of the circuit, acid 
matter is rapidly developed, having the characters of a mix- 
ture of muriatic, phosphoric, and sulphuric acids : and if a 
similar trial be made in the negative part, fixed alkaline matter 
is as quickly exhibited. 
The acid and alkaline tastes produced upon the tongue, in 
Galvanic experiments, seem to depend upon the decompo- 
sition of the saline matter contained in the living animal sub- 
stance, and perhaps in the saliva. 
As acid and alkaline substances are capable of being sepa- 
rated from their combinations in living systems by electrical 
powers, there is every reason to believe that by converse 
methods they may be likewise introduced into the animal 
ceconomy, or made to pass through the animal organs : and 
the same thing may be supposed of metallic oxides ; and 
these ideas ought to lead to some new investigations in 
medicine and physiology. 
It is not improbable that the electrical decomposition of the 
neutral salts in different cases may admit of oeconomical uses. 
* Seeds, I find, when placed in pure water in the positive part of the circuit, ger- 
minate much more rapidly than under common circumstances ; but in the negative 
part of the circuit they do not germinate at all. Without supposing any peculiar 
effects from the different electricities which however may operate, the phenomenon 
may be accounted for from the saturation of the water near the positive metallic 
surface with oxygene, and of that near the negative surface with hydrogene. 
