CHAPTER V.

THE NERVOUS ENERGY.

THE nature of this vital fluid has been the enquiry of all ages, and up to the present time it must be admitted that nothing is known of its essence. Its effects, both in animal and vegetable life, have been found in some important respects to be analogous with those of an agent the most wonderful in nature, the most subtle of all fluids, the most powerful of all stimulants in its action on the life, whether of plants or animals-the electric fluid.

Although science, (with all the rapidity of its march,) has thrown little if any additional light on its phenomena for the last thirty years, yet a few facts have been noticed whose tendency is to show that there is a similitude between the phenomena of the nervous and the electric fluids.

Whenever the properties of the latter shall be better understood than they are at present, in all probability the principle of the nervous

energy will be more cognizable to the range (limited as it must necessarily always be) of human knowledge. A day, in all probability, will come, when the genius of some future Franklin will make that "fifth element," and most powerful of all, better known than it now is; and trace the analogies of the subtle spark which pervades all space, with that corporeal fire which fills the nerves with life, and heat, and communicates vitality and vigor, to every fibre of the heart and its remotest vessels. The nature of the nervous energy may then become better understood, and that invisible aura which fans the blood and invigorates the body, be known to us by something more than its effects.

"In this view," to use the words of one who applied electrical agency to the grandest discoveries of our time, "we do not look to distant ages, or amuse ourselves with brilliant, though delusive dreams, concerning infinite improbability or the annihilation of disease or death. But we reason by analogy from simple facts. We consider only a state of human progression arising out of its present condition; we look for a time that we may reasonably expect, for a bright day of which we already behold the dawn!"

The influence which electricity exerts over vegetable life, till very lately has been overlooked, and even now the same fashion which domineers in academies as well as in boudoirs has rendered the doctrine of animal, or rather vital electricity, as apparently ridiculous as that of electro-chemical agency was considered, before Davy, by its means, changed the whole face of that science which he so nobly cultivated. Nothing, perhaps, has tended more to the discredit of this theory than the inordinate expectations which medical electricity called forth some forty or fifty years ago, when it was ushered into practice as a universal remedy, and which shared the fate of all new remedies whose powers are over-rated, abused, and ultimately decried. But of late years, on the continent, the influence of the electric fluid on vitality has again forced itself on public attention; and in the south of France we have seen whole vineyards in which numerous electrical conductors were attached to the plants, for the purpose of increasing the progress of vegetation, and of invigorating the vines.

In the same manner does electricity act on the animal body, the circulation being quickened by its stimulus, and the fluids driven through the small capillary vessels with inVOL. I.

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creased velocity. Some recent discoveries of Dr. Wilson Philip have proved that the circulation in the smaller capillary tubes may continue for some hours after death, and that their current in life is not synchronous with that of the heart, and, indeed, that the doctrine of the circulation of the blood is inadequate to the explanation of the phenomenon just mentioned.

The facts that are stated we have no reason to doubt; on the contrary, further experience will probably tend to corroborate them; but nothing can be more unsatisfactory than the explanation which is given of the phenomenon.

An observation of Brydone, however, throws no little light on the subject: "If you cause water," he says, "to drop through a small capillary tube, the moment you electrify the tube the fluid runs in a full stream. Electricity," he adds, "must be considered as the great vivifying principle of nature, by which she carries on most of her operations. It is the most subtle and active of all fluids-it is a kind of soul which pervades and quickens every part of nature. When an equal quantity of electricity is diffused through the air, and over the face of the earth, every thing is calm and quiet, but if by accident one part of matter has acquired a

greater quantity than another, the most dreadful consequences ensue before the equilibrium can be restored: nature is convulsed, and thunder, lightning, earthquakes, and whirlwinds en

sue."

But it is not the elements only that are thrown into disorder, by these electrical changes in the atmosphere, every thing that is organic suffers by them; the vigor of plants is diminished, the animal functions are disturbed, and the nervous system of delicate individuals, strangely and unaccountably depressed.

Who has experienced the influence of the scirrocco of the south of Europe, the poisonous kamsin of the East, or even the summer southeast wind of our own clime, without feelings of indescribable lassitude, which are not to be accounted for by any alteration in the temperature, but solely to the variation in the quantity of electricity diffused through the atmosphere. In the prevalence of these winds, the air is nearly deprived of it altogether, and the nervous system is simultaneously deprived of its elasticity. In damp weather likewise, when it becomes absorbed by the surrounding humidity, every invalid is well aware how unaccountably dejected his spirits become, and how feebly the various functions of the body are performed, especially