Excerpt from The Scalpel, 1853, Vol. 6: A Journal of Health, Adapted to Popular and Professional Reading, and the Exposure of Quackery Although electricity will produce most of the phenomena of muscular life, even in the body recently dead, and upon muscles governed by a nerve detached from its natural connections with the still living animal, still there is one experiment that would seem conclusively to prove that electricity is not the sole power that governs our bodies. When a ligature is tightly drawn around a nerve its functions, as a conductor of nerve power, are paralyzed; it can no longer animate the muscle to motion, whilst it is still capable of conveying electricity This would seem to be conclusive, that some other property was possessed. By the nerves moreover, mechanical and chemical irritants, will cause contractions of those muscles governed by the nerve to which the irritation is applied. This is the way that anatomists have discovered the functions of the various nerves. Even the criminal, when recently executed, and still possessing warmth and pliancy, can, be made to exercise the muscles of respiration, and of the face and limbs; and that, too, in a most emphatic and expressive manner, when the various nerves governing the muscles appropriated to perform those movements, are subjected to galvanic action. We shall treat of this extensively in another article in this num her, when speaking of galvanism as a curative agent. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.