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 — John Shaqi
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
Science
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
I might here enumerate many differences which are found between the
administration of Galvanism and that of electricity. If electricity be
administered to a patient directly from the conductor, he receives
very little of its action; if a shock be given with the Leyden flask,
the action is exceedingly strong, but not permanent. On the other
hand, the pile has a strong and continued action, and occasions a
powerful circulation of the Galvanic matter, which after some time
produces very striking effects on the animal fluids. I might here
refer, by way of example, to the experiments made with Galvanism on
the blood, the bile, and the urine, which gave results I was never
able to obtain by common electricity. I shall mention, in the last
place, the great convenience of the pile, and the short space of time
in which Galvanism may be administered by it to a great number of
persons; and this advantage is sufficient, cæteris paribus, to render
it preferable in this respect to common electricity.
SECTION II.
_Application of Galvanism to the organs of hearing and of sight._
By applying Galvanism to different parts of the face, a flash of light
is excited in the eyes, which is stronger or weaker according to the
nature of the parts to which it is directed. These organs, though
delicate, are always affected in such a manner that the mechanism of
the eye sustains no injury from the metallic arcs when they are made
to communicate with only two plates of different metals. I received an
account of this phænomenon at Milan, several years ago, from the
celebrated Volta, who produced it by applying a conductor of zinc in
such a manner, that one end of it touched the bulb of the eye, and the
other the tip of the tongue armed with a plate of tin. In
administering Galvanism for diseases of the eyes, it is much better to
employ the pile. To excite the appearance of a flash of light, it is
not necessary that the eyes should be open; it takes place even if
they are shut, and covered with a bandage in a darkened apartment.
Some of the partisans of Euler, perhaps, may here maintain, that this
phænomenon of Galvanism is a deception, and that no light can be
really excited in such cases, as the production of light depends on
the emanation of rays from a luminous body which penetrate into the
interior part of the eye. But without entering into the examination of
this question, which is foreign to my principal object, I shall only
observe, that long before the theory of Galvanism was known, the
celebrated Darwin had found that when the eyes are shut, there are
certain internal stimulants which are capable of producing the
appearance of light and of colours.
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