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platina, silver, copper, ami occasionally steel wire, forconnecting the positive and negative ends of the battery,and for conductors of the fluid. The recipients for thegalvanic effects were sometimes made of gold, agate, glass,muriate of barytes, clay, wax, and other substances; fromwhence a great variety of experiments -were made, andnumerous conclusions drawn. And from whence, he dis-covered that the nature of the galvanic fluid is admirablyadapted for a grand chymical agent in dissolving concretionsof various materials, deflagrating metals, decomposing mostsubstances, analyzing and reducing all things to theirelemental components, &.c. &c. The powerful agency ofthis fluid upon the nervous and muscular construction of ananimal substance, may be ascertained from the annexednote, recounting experiments made by Dr. Urie, at Glas-gow , in last November . 1
There are only some few parts of the material worldupon which we have yet bestowed that attention, which wehad at first intended ;—of those parts which remain, we havetherefore, now to speak.
Water, — according to our arrangement, now claimsattention. Having already spoken of the renovation ofwater, after it had been an occupant of the earth, andbrought again to a state to be serviceable to nature, wehave now to describe some of its very peculia'r properties;this element may be decomposed by another elementalforce to which all nature submits, the electric or galvanicfluids, but the latter is chiefly employed;—when water is dis-
1 On the 4th November, 1810, various experiments were made upon the bodyof the murderer, Clydersdale, by Dr. Urie, of Glasgow , with a galvanic batteryof 270 pair of 4-inch plates : the results were truly appalling.
On moving the rod from the thigh to the jbr.cl, the knee, previously bent, wasthrown out with such violence, as nearly to overturn one of the assistants, who invain attempted to prevent its extension. In the second experiment, the rod wasapplied to the phrenic nerve in the neck, when laborious breathing instantly com-menced ; the cheeks heaved and fell, the belly was protruded and collapsedwith the relaxing and retiring diaphrain ; and it was thought, but for the completeevacuation of blood, pulsation might have occurred ! In the third experiment thesuperorbitai nerve was touched,—when every muscle in the murderer’s face wasthrown into fearful action : the scene was hideous,—several of the spectators leftthe room,—and one of the gentlemen actually fainted from terror or sickness.In the fourth experiment, the transmitting of the electrical power from the spinalmarrow to the t ertebraic nerve at the elbow, the fingers were instantly put inmotion, and the agitation of the arm was so great that the corpse seemed to pointto the different spectators, some of whom feared that it had come to life l Dr.Urie appears to be of opinion, that had not incisions been made in the blood-vessels of the neck, and the spinal marrow been lacerated, the criminal might havecome to life.