No. II.
Report presented to the Class of the Exact Sciences of the Academy of Turin, 15th August 1802, in regard to the Galvanic Experiments made by C. Vassali-Eandi, Giulio, and Rossi, on the 10th and 14th of the same Month, on the Bodies of three Men a short Time after their Decapitation. By C. Giulio.
The First Consul, in a letter to Chaptal, in which he announced to that minister the two prizes he had founded to encourage philosophers to make new researches in regard to Galvanism, says, “Galvanism, in my opinion, will lead to great discoveries.” This observation was just and profound: great discoveries have already been made; Galvani and Volta have immortalized their names, and several celebrated philosophers and physiologists have rendered themselves illustrious in this branch of science, so abundant in astonishing phænomena: yet it is only in its infancy, and there can be no doubt that many important discoveries still remain to be made.
Vassali, Rossi, and myself, have for several years been employed in researches on this subject. While the first examined the Galvanic fluid in every point of view, for the purpose of illustrating its nature by means of a great number of ingenious experiments, performed with that care and exactness for which he is distinguished, Rossi and I attempted
to explain the action of the Galvanic fluid on the different organs of the animal œconomy.
Sometimes I was obliged to interrupt my researches by unfortunate circumstances, and at others by my administrative functions: but I have now resumed them; and though success has not yet crowned our efforts by any brilliant discovery, we trust, and with confidence, that we shall be able to add some valuable facts to the history of the animal œconomy; to rectify others; to confirm facts already received; and to extend the domain of an inexhaustible agent fertile in wonders.
Volta had announced that the involuntary organs, such as the heart, the stomach, the intestines, the bladder and vessels, are insensible to the Galvanic action[15]: but we have fully refuted this great physiological error. Unfortunately, however, the Latin memoir containing the decisive experiments which we made on cold-blooded and warm-blooded animals in 1792, presented to the Academy soon after, and which, according to Sue, in his History of Galvanism[16], “are curious, and contain very interesting observations,” did not appear till 1801,
when it was printed in the last volume of the Transactions of the Academy.
In that interval Grapengiesser found, as we had done, that Galvanism, by means of zinc and silver[17], has an influence on the peristaltic motion. Humboldt ascertained the Galvanic action on the hearts of frogs, lizards, toads, and fishes. Smuch observed the excitability of the heart by the Galvanic fluid; and Fowler changed the pulsations of the heart without the immediate application to it of armatures, and only by adapting them in warm-blooded animals to the recurrent nerve by means of the sympathetic[18].