Transcriber's Note:
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The subject of the followingexperiments, has excited suchgeneral curiosity, that every newfact respecting it, may afford somegratification; and although the fewwhich I have to offer, have notled me to what many may thinkvery important conclusions, theywill not I hope be found whollyundeserving of attention. The experimentswere begun, with theview of ascertaining if the influencediscovered by M. Galvani, bereferrible to any known law of nature,or if it be itself a new law.
Finding that it indicated, withtolerable accuracy, the presence ofvery small degrees of the contractilepower of muscles, without appearingin the least to diminishthat power, as electricity and mostother stimuli never fail to do; Ithought it might be used with advantage,as a test, in the investigationof some important subjectsin physiology; and I have accordinglyemployed it as such.
Every circumstance, observed inthe course of these experiments,was carefully noted down, at theinstant it occurred, and the greaternumber of these was made in thepresence of gentlemen, whose accuracyI had reason to hope woulddetect any fallacy, which mighthave escaped myself. I have a particularpleasure, in expressing myobligation to Mr George Hunter ofYork, for the very friendly assistancewhich he afforded me, inalmost every experiment, whichrendered such assistance necessary.
The whole train of circumstances, whichpreceded this discovery, had a tendencyto occasion the belief of its relationto electricity.
Some accidental appearances, certainly electrical,excited, by their novelty, the attentionof the Professor of Anatomy at Bologna,to the investigation of the possible,but unknown, dependencies of the motionsof animals upon electricity; and the astonishingeffects of that influence upon thehuman body, particularly in paralytic diseases,whether owing to derangements of2the nerves, or of the muscles; the experiments,which prove that the fluids of animalsare better conductors of electricity,than water is; and that, “if an electricshock pass through a given part of a living