Notes on the medical application of electricity / by William F. Channing.

  • Channing, William F. (William Francis), 1820-1901.
Date:
1852
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Notes on the medical application of electricity / by William F. Channing. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University.

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    with the electrical endowments of the gymnotus,* will serve as a fitting introduction to this subject. 2. The anatomical relation of the nervous sys- tem to the electric organs; the evident exhaustion of the nervous energy during the production of electri- city in that organ; the apparently equivalent produc- tion of electricity, in proportion to the quantity of the nervous force consumed ; the constant direction of the current produced, with its relation to what we may believe to be an equally constant direction of the nervous energy thrown into action at the same time — all induce me to believe that it is not impossible but that, on passing electricity per force through the organ, a reaction back upon the nervous system be- longing to it might take place, and that a restoration, to a greater or smaller degree, of that which the ani- mal expends in the act of exciting a current, might, perhaps, be effected So, perhaps, in these organs, where nature has provided the apparatus by means of which the animal can exert and convert nervous into electric force, we may be able, possess- ing, in that point of view, a power far beyond that of the fish itself, to reconvert the electric into the ner- vous force. 3. With respect to the nature of nervous power, that exertion of it which is conveyed along the nerves to the various organs which they excite into action, is not the direct principle of life; and there- fore I see no natural reason why we should not be * Experimental Researches. Series XV. Nov. 1838.