On Signor Carlo Matteucciʼs letter to H. Bence Jones : editor of an abstract of Dr. Bois-Reymondʼs Researches in animal electricity / by Emil Du Bois-Reymond.

  • Du Bois-Reymond, Emil, 1818-1896.
Date:
1853
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On Signor Carlo Matteucciʼs letter to H. Bence Jones : editor of an abstract of Dr. Bois-Reymondʼs Researches in animal electricity / by Emil Du Bois-Reymond. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Glasgow Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Glasgow Library.

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    take place during the contractions was only due to the decrease of resistance caused by wetting the nerves with alkali. He therefore then says— Let us then conclude that direct experiment ansivers negatively to the question we proposed to solve, whether there were evolution of electricity in muscidar contraction.^''* And this statement he has since repeated several times—first, in his letter to M. Dumas, of September, 1845:— J\ii varie de mille manieres les experiences pour dccouvrir sHl y a un degogement d'elcctricite dans Ja contraction musculaire. Tai emj)loye pour cela les instruments les plus delicats et tous les soins possibles, et je dois conclure que ce degagement d'elcctricite ne pent pas se demontrer par Vexperiencethen, in 1846, in the French translation of the paper of the Philosophical Transactions, published in the Annales de Chimie et de Physique again, in 1847,in a letter to M. Dumas, printed in the Comptes-rendus :—Ow ne trouve auciine augmentation dans le courant muscidaire pendant la con- traction du muscle and, once more in the same year, in his Le9ons sur les Phenomenes physiques des Corps vivants, p. 277:— Concliions done que Vexperience directe repond negative- ment a la question que nous nous sommes addressee s'il y avait developpement d'electriciie pendant la contraction musculaire.''- Lastly, in 1S49, after I had given a short account of my expe- riments on the negative variation as observed on the living body of man. Signer Matteucci, who in vain attempted to repeat these experiments, wrote in the Comptes-rendus:— C'est avec le plus vif interSt que fai repete cette experience. Tavais espere quCelle me tirera.it une fois pour toutes de Vincertitude dans laquelle je suis depuis In decouverte de la contraction induite. Malgre vn tres-grand nombre d'experiences, dans lesquelles jai tdche de de- couvrir la vraie nature de la contraction induite, f ai du a la Jin con- clure quHl m'etait impossible de decider si la cause etnit un degoge- ment d'elcctricite par la contraction, ou un veritable cas d^induction nerveuse . . . J'di done Men demontre que, de Vexperience de M. du * Pliilosophical Transactions for the year 1845. P. ii., p. 307- _ + Annales de Chimie et de Physique. Septembre 1845. ^ 3 Ser.e t xv., r,r. fi7 fiS The reader will remember that in that same letter Signer Matteucci Save the true interpretation of the passage of the Essai, and ridiculed what he ^oilorl mv hvDothesis of the negative variation. ''Znalen; Chimie et de Physique. Octobre 1846. 3« Serie, t. xvuu. § 15 Mars 1847. t. xxiv., p. 415.