Electro-physiology and electro-therapeutics : showing the best methods for the medical uses of electricity / By Alfred C. Garratt.

that, in 1847, Dr. Golding Bird says, " I found the copy in the library of the Royal Medical and Chirurgical Society with the leaves uncut." I wish to make a record here of these early propositions of Aldini, because they so remarkably corroborate, as they evidently did also anticipate, the late brilliant researches of his countryman, Professor Matteucci. These propositions concisely were,— 1. " That muscular contractions are excited by the develop- ment of a fluid in the animal machine, which is conducted from the nerves to the muscles, without the concurrence, interven- tion, or action of metals." In proof of this proposition, Aldini procured the head of a very recently killed ox, which was placed upon a table ; also the posterior legs of a recently killed frog, which he held in one hand by the feet, so that the large ischiatic nerves hung down, and thus he caused the tip of the nerve of the frog to touch the tip of the tongue of the ox, which had been previously drawn a little oxit of the head and mouth. The circuit was completed by taking hold of one ear of the head of the ox by his other hand, also thoroughly wet. The instant the contact was made, there was contraction of the frog's legs, and the contraction ceasing the instant the circuit was broken. He also showed, that the intensity of these contractions was much increased by arranging several heads in a series, much as M. Matteucci did with the pectoral muscles of pigeons, some forty years after- wards. He next so prepared a recently killed frog, that by holding up its leg by its toe in his fingers, and allowing its ischiatic nerve to be pendulous, he could bring its nerve in contact with its own tongue. Contractions instantly ensued from the current of electricity that thus evidently traversed the frog's leg, in its route from the external or periphery, to the internal or mucous covering of the body. If we interpret this experiment aright, it certainly demonstrates the existence of the musculo-cutane- ous currents, and completely anticipates its discovery by Donne, some thirty-five years after. He substantiated those results by referring to the then physicians and professors of Guy's and