Experiments on the Nervous System with Opium and Metalline Substances: Made Chiefly with the View of Determining the Nature and Effects of Animal ElectricityMonro, Alexander
Science
Experiments on the Nervous System with Opium and Metalline Substances: Made Chiefly with the View of Determining the Nature and Effects of Animal Electricity
Monro, Alexander
Electrophysiology -- Early works to 1800; Frogs -- Physiology; Nervous system -- Experiments -- Early works to 1800
24. AFTER finding that I could readily excite Convulsions in the hind
Legs of a Frog, without cutting it, by laying its Back on a Plate of
Zinc, and introducing a gold Probe within its Intestinum Rectum and
touching the Zinc with the side of the Probe, I produced two or three
hundred Convulsions, succeeding each other quickly, and observed that
its Legs were, by these means, so much weakened, that it could not
jump, and crawled with difficulty, but in a few minutes it recovered
nearly the full force of its Muscles.
IN other Frogs I passed a gold Wire between their Sciatic Nerves and Os
Sacrum, and twisted together the two ends of the Wire over the Backs of
the Animals. I then put them into a Zinc Vessel filled with Water, or
into a Glass Vessel filled with Water, in the bottom of which I laid a
large Plate of Zinc: So that every time the Animals by moving separated
the Gold from the Zinc, and again brought them into contact, their hind
Legs were convulsed. I allowed them to remain three or four days in
this situation, and found that their Limbs were weakened considerably,
but not exhausted of their Power of Motion; and, after removing the
gold Wire, the Limbs by degrees recovered their strength.
I MADE the same Experiment on those Frogs in which I had, six weeks
before, cut out, from behind, all that part of their Spinal Marrow
which is covered by the six undermost Vertebræ, and found, several
days after the Frogs had been subjected to the Experiment, that, by
pinching their Sciatic and Femoral Nerves, and still more readily by
the application of the Gold and Zinc, weak convulsions of the Muscles
were excited.
25. AFTER Frogs were prepared as above described, by cutting their
Spines transversely, and then all the parts of their Pelves, except
their Sciatic Nerves, I found that slight Electrical Shocks, or a
Leyden Phial discharged directly through the Limbs of a Frog, or
indirectly by the medium of water, produced convulsions in their
Muscles, exactly resembling those excited by the Metals. And when,
after moderate Electrical Shocks had been passed repeatedly through
their Legs, the Metals were applied to their Nerves, in the manner
before mentioned, the Muscles were convulsed. I found, likewise,
that after cutting the Nerves transversely, and tying them together,
Electrical Shocks were conducted by the Nerves, and occasioned
convulsions of the Muscles.
WHEN I had killed Frogs, by discharging through them, from their
foreheads to their hind feet, large Leyden Phials highly charged, I
found their Nerves or Muscles, or both, so much deranged, that feeble
convulsions only could be excited by pinching the Nerves, or by
applying the Metals to them.
SUMMARY OF FACTS PROVED BY THE FOREGOING EXPERIMENTS.
ON reviewing the foregoing Experiments, we shall find the following
Facts fully proved.
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