XIV. Electro-Physiological Researches. — Eighth Set'ies. By Signor Carlo Mat- 
TEucci. Communicated by W. R. Grove. Esq.^ F.R.S. 
Received September 10, 1849, — Read January 10, 1850. 
I PROPOSED to myself in my former memoirs* to embrace under some general 
views the phenomena of muscular contraction, of the production of electricity in 
fishes, and of the relation between the electric current and nervous force. I shall 
now endeavour to redeem my pledge, thankful to Providence in being permitted to 
resume my studies, and to seek in them some alleviation of the profound grief occa- 
sioned by the recent disasters of my country. 
Previously to giving an account of my recent researches, it will be advisable to 
recall, in a few words, the leading results which may be said to form the summary 
of my former studies on electro-physiology, and which have been the starting-point 
of my later investigations. 
1. A constant development of electricity takes place in all animal tissues, and 
principally in the muscles. All the laws of the muscular current, which have been 
established by a great number of experiments, lead to the conclusion that this de- 
velopment of electricity is owing to the chemical actions of nutrition, and particu- 
larly to that of muscular fibre on arterial blood. This electro-physiological pheno- 
menon is therefore simply dependent on a general physical law : we may compare a 
muscle in which arterial blood circulates, conveying thither the elements of nutrition, 
to a collection of particles of zinc surrounded by acidulated water. The two elec- 
tricities separate, and are reunited instantaneously between the molecules of metal 
and of liquid. If we establish a circuit between muscular tissues and the parts 
which communicate with them, which do not suffer the same chemical action on 
the part of the blood, we obtain signs of an electric current the direction of which 
is already determined by the physical conditions of this source of electricity. 
2. In each prism of the electrical organ of fishes, the two electricities are sepa- 
rated under the influence of nervous action propagated from the brain towards the 
extremities of the nerves : a relation exists between the direction and the intensity 
of the nervous current, and also between the position and the quantity of the two 
electricities developed in the prism : according to this relation, verified by experiment, 
if we represent (as Ampere did for electro-magnetic action) the nervous current 
by the figure of a man extended on the nerve and looking towards the tail of the 
torpedo, or the dorsal surface of the gymnotus, the positive electricity of the prism 
* Phil. Trans. 1847. 
