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
I shall not here speak of the variation in insensible perspiration,
and of the increase of circulation, which, according to the
observations of several physicians, are found to be produced by
Galvanism. Similar phænomena, as is well known, take place during the
administration of common electricity. I shall therefore confine myself
to those effects which hitherto have been produced only by the action
of Galvanism. I shall observe in the first place, that Galvanism, as
already shown in the Experiments detailed in the Second Part, is
capable of effecting a separation of the fluids, and even sometimes of
protruding the fæcal matters from the body. In the case of the
decapitated malefactor, I found that when the arc was applied to one
ear and to the lips, a very sensible portion of saliva was discharged
from the mouth. This observation was confirmed at Genoa on the head of
an ox, and in several other places on the heads of sheep. The
phænomenon of the extrusion of the fæcal matters from the trunk of an
ox, by means of Galvanism, was observed also by Professor Mojon of
Genoa, and his brother, to take place in human bodies. Considering the
animal fluids separately, I have found that very great variations are
produced in them by Galvanism. But before I give an account of the
experiments which I made on this subject, I shall describe the
apparatus I employed.
The animal fluid destined to be exposed to the action of Galvanism is
put into a glass vessel (Plate III. fig. 6.) covered by a wooden lid,
having in it two holes equally distant from the centre. Two wires, one
of brass and the other of plated copper, the upper extremities of
which are bent into the form of a hook, pass through these holes in
such a manner, that the lower extremities of them reach nearly to the
bottom of the vessel, where they are bent at right angles, so that
only a very small interval is left between them. The upper extremity
of one is made to communicate with the bottom of the pile, and the
other with the summit. In consequence of this arrangement the Galvanic
fluid is obliged to traverse the animal fluid, by which means it
exercises an action on it according to the distance of the wires, and
by its action separates from its different strata sometimes one
principle and sometimes another; and this secretion will be effected
with more ease and in greater abundance, according as the action of
the pile is stronger, and the capacity of the conductors more
considerable.
EXPERIMENT I.
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