An Account of the Late Improvements in Galvanism: With a Series of Curious and Interesting Experiments Performed Before the Commissioners of the French National Institute, and Repeated Lately in the Anatomical Theatres of LondonAldini, Giovanni
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An Account of the Late Improvements in Galvanism: With a Series of Curious and Interesting Experiments Performed Before the Commissioners of the French National Institute, and Repeated Lately in the Anatomical Theatres of London
Aldini, Giovanni
Electricity -- Early works to 1850
If the experiment be repeated with the frogs arranged in such a manner
that the spinal marrow and muscles are not each at one end (Plate I.
fig. 8.), but disposed alternately so that the spinal marrow of one
touches sometimes the muscles of another, or vice versa, convulsions
will then be produced only in some of the frogs, and not in the whole
series. This experiment proves that the effect does not, in any
manner, depend on the action of metals; because metallic electricity
in the first experiment ought to exercise an action only on the first
frog, and not on the rest; and, in the second, ought to cause them all
to move together, or to leave them motionless.
I shall now proceed to those experiments which appear to be best
calculated to support the opinion of the great analogy between
electricity and Galvanism.
PROPOSITION VIII.
_The Leyden flask, the Voltaic pile, and animal substances, have the
faculty of absorbing principles from the atmospheric air in an
insulated plenum._
EXPERIMENT I.
By means of a metallic point, I electrified the interior side of a
glass jar, which I inverted and placed on a plate of metal, so as to
form an insulated plenum. In a little time, I saw the water rise in
the glass several lines; and I then flattered myself with the hopes of
obtaining some remarkable effects by another method.
EXPERIMENT II.
I provided for this experiment a Leyden flask, seven inches in height
and about three in diameter, coated in the usual manner with tin foil:
the exterior end of the wire terminated in a sharp point, so that the
electric fluid which escaped from it could easily combine with the
principles of the atmospheric air, with which it had a greater
affinity. I then electrified the jar, and covered it with a glass
receiver of such a size that its electricity could not be weakened by
the sides of the latter. I thus formed an insulated plenum, and at the
end of half an hour I saw the water ascend in the receiver in a very
sensible manner.
EXPERIMENT III.
Having made the wire to terminate, not in a point, but in a metallic
knob, as usual, I again charged the jar, and having placed it under a
common receiver, at the end of about half an hour I found that the
elevation of the water was much greater. To remove every suspicion
that this might arise from the water employed in the preceding
experiment, to insulate the plenum, I substituted mercury in its
stead; and though the elevations were less, they were, however,
analogous to those which had been observed a little before with water.
By repeating this experiment with a similar jar, not electrified, one
may be easily convinced, that the elevation of the water in the bell
ought not to be ascribed to a difference in the temperature of the air
within it.
EXPERIMENT IV.
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