[115] Galvanic experiments have at different times been made on the bodies of those who have been executed. Vassali, Julio and Rossi made a great number of them at Turin; but the piles that were then used were very weak compared with those that are now employed. In the experiments made at Newgate on the body of a criminal, the limbs were violently agitated, the eyes opened and shut, the mouth and the jaws moved in every direction, and the face was thrown into the most frightful convulsions. The last and most complete experiments, that we know of, were made at Glasgow in November 1818 by Dr. Andrew Ure. He used for these experiments a battery composed of two hundred and seventy pair of plates four inches square, with communicating wires, and so arranged that they could be insulated for the purpose of applying the electricity in a more convenient manner. The subject, on whom these experiments were made, was of middle height, about thirty years of age and of an athletic constitution. He was on the gallows almost an hour, and he was not convulsed after being hung, whilst a robber executed at the same time was violently agitated for a considerable time. He was carried to the anatomical theatre of the university, about ten minutes after he was removed from the gallows. His face had a perfectly natural appearance being neither livid nor swollen, and the neck was not dislocated. About five minutes before the arrival of the police officers with the body, the battery was charged with diluted nitro-sulphuric acid, which quickly put it in a state to exert an intense action. _1st Experiment._ A large incision was made immediately below the occiput. The posterior half of the first vertebra was then removed and the spinal marrow laid bare, at the same time a considerable incision was made in the great glutæus muscle, in order to expose the sciatic nerve. A slight incision was made in the heel; no blood escaped from any part. A wire which communicated with one extremity of the battery was put in contact with the spinal marrow, whilst the other was applied to the sciatic nerve. All the muscles of the body were in an instant agitated with convulsive motions which resembled a violent shuddering. The strongest convulsions were on the left side; at each time of renewing the electric contact by moving the second wire from the haunch to the heel the knee being previously bent, the leg was thrown out with so much force, that it threw down one of the assistants who in vain endeavoured to prevent the extension.