Abstract
To any one taking a general view of the present position of physiology, there are few things more striking than the deficiency of our knowledge respecting the source of the current which traverses the nervous system, and is brought into play through the instrumentality of its various parts. That the current itself is electricity in some form or another, is almost universally acknowledged, but in what part of the body it originates, or from what store of energy it is derived, is more than most have attempted to answer. The question is made more difficult than it would otherwise be, from the fact that in all those animals which exhibit external electrical phenomena to any extent, such as the Torpedo and Gymnotus, there are large and elaborate special organs for the development of the shocks they produce, but no similar mechanicism, and nothing approaching to it, can be detected in man or other animals, whereby an electrical current or charge might originate. The brain and the various ganglia are often compared to the batteries of a system of electric telegraph, but how they would act if they were such, it is almost impossible to explain.
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GARROD, A. The Origin of Nerve Force . Nature 8, 265 (1873). https://doi.org/10.1038/008265a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/008265a0