An Account of the Late Improvements in Galvanism / With a Series of Curious and Interesting Experiments Performed Before the Commissioners of the French National Institute, and Repeated Lately in the Anatomical Theatres of London

by Giovanni Aldini

EXPERIMENT II.

Electricity, concentrated in the Leyden flask, contributes also to increase the action of Galvanism. Having prepared a pile, composed of fifty plates of copper and zinc, I formed an arc by interposing a charged jar, and obtained an explosion much stronger than that obtained by the Leyden flask charged with an equal quantity of the electric fluid, and discharged independently of the pile.

EXPERIMENT III.

I took the same flask, after it was discharged, and having formed a portion of an arc, applied to the two extremities of the pile, I observed that the Galvanism refused to pass the obstacle presented to it by the stratum of glass interposed between the two coatings; consequently I received no shock.

EXPERIMENT IV.

I repeated the second experiment, insulating the pile, and at the same time the person who touched the pile with the charged flask. By these means I obtained a much stronger explosion than could have been produced separately by the Leyden flask or the pile. In this experiment I observed that the repeated passage of the electricity of the flask throughout the whole extent of the pile, did not deprive it of the property of exciting Galvanism.

PROPOSITION XIII.

Galvanism, in animals and in the pile, traverses large spaces with the same rapidity as the electric fluid.

EXPERIMENT.