Experiments and Observations Relative to the Influence Lately Discovered by M. Galvani and Commonly Called Animal Electricity — John Shaqi
Experiments and Observations Relative to the Influence Lately Discovered by M. Galvani and Commonly Called Animal ElectricityFowler, Richard
Science
Experiments and Observations Relative to the Influence Lately Discovered by M. Galvani and Commonly Called Animal Electricity
Fowler, Richard
Electrophysiology -- Early works to 1800; Galvani, Luigi, 1737-1798
As evacuating the blood from a living animal is rather a severe
operation, and might have occasioned some fallacy in the last
experiment, by subjecting the frog, in which this was done, to a
greater degree of pain, and consequently of exhaustion, than what the
other was subjected to, I crushed the brains of two other frogs before
I proceeded, as in the former experiment, to withdraw the blood from
one of them. Instead of forty, I injected no more than thirteen drops
of the strong solution of opium, into each of the hearts of these
frogs. The instant the injection had entered, both hearts became white,
and ceased from contracting. Forty eight hours after the injection of
the opium, the contractions excited by the metals in the frog, deprived
of its blood, had become very slight, particularly in the limb whose
vein and artery had been opened. The other frog still continued to
contract with so much vigour, as to raise its body from the plate of
zinc, upon which it was laid. Seventy two hours after the injection, no
contractions could be excited in the frog, from which the blood had
been withdrawn, except some very slight ones in the leg, whose artery
and vein had not been opened. The contractions in the legs of the other
frog, continued still so vigorous as to raise its body from the plate,
and some were produced even by mechanical irritation.
Ninety six hours after the opium had been injected, (both the frogs
having lain out of water all night,) that without blood was found quite
putrid. In the other, the contractions, produced by exciting the legs,
were sufficiently strong to move the feet: as the body, however, had
become putrid and offensive, it was thrown away.
EXPERIMENT III.
The heads of two other full grown and lively frogs, having been
crushed, their hearts were laid bare, and the blood was evacuated from
one of them, as in the former experiments. A small portion of the skull
of each then being removed, eight drops of the strong solution of opium
was injected upon their brains. At least half the quantity seemed to
return from the wound. Both frogs became instantaneously motionless
after the injection, but, in about an hour, were considerably recovered.
Spontaneous motions continued during more than fifty hours, in the legs
of that from which the blood had not been drawn, and contractions were
excitable by the metals, upwards of 24 hours after they had ceased to
be so, in that from which the blood had been drawn.
The following experiments may be deemed still more satisfactory, than
the preceding, from the circumstance of the comparison having been
instituted, between the effects of opium, upon different, but similar
parts of the same frog, differently circumstanced.
EXPERIMENT IV.
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