NERVOUS FORCE: 
Its Origin and Physiology. 
y by 
W. C. BARRETT, M.D., D.D.S., 
BUFFALO, N. Y. 
READ BEFORE THE 
AMERICAN DENTAL ASSOCIATION 
AT ITS 
TWENTY-SECOND ANNUAL MEETING, 
HELD IN 
Cincinnati, August 1-5, 1882. THE INDEPENDENT PRACTITIONER 
PUBLISHED BY 
THE NEW YORK DENTAL JOURNAL ASSOCIATION, 
35 West 46th St., NEW YORK. NERVOUS FORCE. 
THEBE are two things of which I wish to speak, and these 
two things make up the sum of the whole universe so far as 
man can know: they are matter and force. I say the study of these 
must form the whole, the entirety of human research, so far as 
any positive knowledge or the hope of definite information is 
concerned. We may speculate and theorize and dogmatize upon 
things spiritual and metaphysical as much as we like, but con- 
cerning them we can by no possibility arrive at any definite con- 
clusion, nor can we prove any assertion, it matters little how wild 
it may be, as either absolutely true or false. When we come into 
the domain of physics we are studying the actual, the real, the 
tangible. 
I desire, then, for a few moments to consider, in a general 
way, matter and force — the one real, positive, palpable, inert; 
the other immaterial, etherial, incorporeal, yet dominative over 
the tactile mass; a law which is ever active in bringing about 
definitive changes in the passive matter; a ghostly, pervading 
something, which changes a dead, a lifeless, an inanimate mass of 
chaos into this world of life, and joy, and beauty, and animation. 
What is this mysterious influence that we call force? Let us 
examine it. But in what I shall have to say I desire it ever to 
be borne in mind that I am speaking solely of physics, and that 
it has no kind of metaphysical or speculative application what- 
ever. The relation of mind to matter it is no part of my present 
plan to endeavor to trace out. 
Force can be studied only through its chief resulting plienom- 2 
NERVOUS FORCE, 
enon — motion. We find that matter and force are infinitely- 
opposed. Matter seeks eternal rest; force, perpetual motion. 
They mutually react upon each other, matter being by force 
constantly changed in its characteristics, force by matter 
continually varied in mode of manifestation. They are thus 
mutually interdependent, co-existent, eternal parts of one stupen- 
dous whole. Interdependent, because one cannot form a portion 
of this universe without the other; co-existent, because each per- 
vades the other, and eternal, because both can die only together. 
It has long been an axiom in physics that matter is imperish- 
able. The same train of reasoning which proves this, establishes 
also the fact that force is indestructible. If an atom can change 
its condition only through the exertion of force, if its form only 
can be altered, the bonds which unite it to certain other atoms 
only be liberated to enable it to form new unions with yet other 
atoms, and if not one of those particles can be lost or annihilated, 
then can force only, by the reaction of matter, be induced to 
change its mode of manifestation or its direction. If not an atom 
has ever been destroyed since matter existed, then it necessarily 
follows that not an influence, not a wave of force, has ever been 
extinguished since, simultaneously with matter, it first exerted 
sway. We may, through the action of force, alter the condition of 
matter; we may, through the reaction of matter, change the 
character of force; but both are alike indestructible and eternal. 
Matter is all one, under whatsoever form it may exist. Force is a 
unit, however it may manifest itself. These are predicates, tru- 
isms, self-evident, self-proved, fixed laws of physical science. This 
doctrine is not new, for as long ago as 1845, Faraday declared 
that he held the opinion that the various forms under which 
the forces of matter are made manifest have one common origin, 
and are so mutually interdependent that they are convertible one 
into another, and possess equivalents of power in their action. 
To my apprehension, matter and force are as intimately connected 
as are what Faraday calls the different manifestations of force 
with each other. We cannot conceive of matter except as it be 
subject to force. We cannot imagine power as distinct from the 
matter upon which it acts. They are essentially co-existent, 
coeval, synchronous. 
Force may act upon matter in different ways, and the result NERVOUS FORCE. 
3 
may be motion of a mass, or of atoms. The changes consequent 
upon this action may be those of external form—morphological 
—or of internal structure—molecular. According to the peculiar 
manifestation of it we have been accustomed to call it Heat, 
Light, Electricity, or Chemical affinity; but in whatever mode it 
becomes sensible to our preceptions there is one definition which 
will always describe it, one expression which always characterizes 
it. It is essentially matter in motion. Heat Avas formerly re- 
garded as a subtle substance, with unknown, tangible qualities, 
and its specific name was Caloric. It was, with Light and Elec- 
tricity, classed as an imponderable fluid, because it was conceived 
that no other hypothesis would account for the phenomena which 
it exhibited. Light, it was supposed, consisted of minute 
characteristic particles which proceeded from the sun, or from 
any luminous body. Electricity also was regarded as an invisible 
entity of some kind, possessed of peculiar qualities. It was 
known rather by its physical manifestations than from any 
knowledge of its character, but the general opinion held it to be 
an extremely tenuous matter, which, while pervading most sub- 
stances, could yet be bottled up, confined, or dissipated at will. 
It was usually spoken of as the electric fluid, and in mv early 
school days I was taught that there were two kinds of electricity 
—a positive and a negative—which were always seeking to neutra- 
lize each other. Further study and investigation made manifest 
the absurdities of these crude theories, and a new hypothesis was 
invented—that all these supposed entities, these actual, positive 
existences of some kind of matter called light, heat, etc., really 
acted through a specific media—a fluid which pervaded all 
matter and all space, an invisible, intangible ether, which, once 
put in motion by the action of light, heat or electricity, had suffi- 
cient power to produce all the violent phenomena which were 
supposed to be the effects of these agents, and this hypothesis is 
held by most people to-day. 
Count Eumford disposed of the material theory by immersing 
two iron or steel bodies in cold water, and then, by the friction 
or attrition of the one upon the other, gradually raising the water 
to the boiling point. This was the initial attempt at removing 
the consideration of the study of force from the domain of meta- 
physics to that of physics. Prof. Grove first publicly announced 4 
NERVOUS FORCE. 
the modern theory that the so-called imponderables—light, heat, 
electricity, etc.—are peculiar states of ordinary matter; that they 
are resolvable into motion, and that they are, in fact, all very 
closely connected, and the new doctrine was denominated the 
Correlation of Physical Forces. The theory was taken up by 
others, the real nature of the so-called forces was studied, and 
the further proposition was enunciated that they are all mutually 
convertible into each other. It was necessary in the consideration 
of these forces to study them in their manifestations, to compare 
them with other physical phenomena, and note their resemblances 
or their discrepancies. It has been determined that most, if not 
all the forces, progress by means of an undulating or wave-like 
motion, not unlike the advance of the concentric waves made by 
casting a stone into a smooth body of water. This hypothesis is 
firmly established as regards sound, not only by actual measure- 
ment of the vibrations of resonant bodies, but by the very struc- 
ture of our own auditory apparatus. 
The vibrations produced by light have not only been demon- 
strated, but accurately measured. And not only this, but it is very 
clearly shown that the different colors of the solar spectrum are 
produced by a definite number of vibrations upon the retina of 
the eye. Further, the very number of these wave-like beatings 
have been ascertained and counted. The most delicate, but at the 
same time the most determining experiments have been con- 
ducted, and these demonstrate that to produce the color at one 
end of the solar spectrum, red, 480,000,000,000,000 of these 
vibrations must impinge upon the retina in each second; 
while to produce violet, the color at the other extreme of the 
spectrum, the number of vibrations per second is no less than 
720,000,000,000,000. 
The same arguments which are applicable to the undulatory 
theory of the progress of light, are equally pertinent in the con- 
sideration of electricity, for its mode of progression has been 
shown to be nearly allied to that of light. 
And now let us for a moment consider the characteristics of 
some of these forces. Sir Humphrey Davy says that the imme- 
diate cause of the phenomena of heat is motion, and the laws of 
its communication are precisely the same as the laws of the com- 
munication of motion. We know that all molecular movement is NERVOUS FORCE. 
5 
accompanied by the evolution of heat to a greater or less degree. 
This is equally true whether it be of the changes incited by what 
is known as chemical action, or the motion induced within the 
mass of iron upon the blacksmith’s anvil. We also know that the 
same molecular disturbance generates what is known as elec- 
tricity, and that both these elements are operative in inducing 
that change sometimes called chemism. It is equally true that 
each of these forces is convertible into any of the others. Thus, if 
we commence with chemical action, we all know how, within the 
cells of the battery, this action is made manifest in the electrical 
current, and thus chemical force is converted into electrical force. 
If, now, this force be generated in sufficient quantities and con- 
ducted along a wire of sufficient size for its easy transportation, 
and if in this “circuit” a piece of small platinum wire of such 
size as to partially obstruct the “current” be inserted, we all 
know that the platinum wire soon becomes red hot, and we see 
an instance of the conversion of electrical force into heat. The 
galvano-cautery is an instance of this. If, now, the current be 
increased and the obstruction be entire at one point, the most 
dazzling radiance is manifest, and here we have an instance of the 
conversion of electricity into light. The electric light is an 
illustration of this. 
Here, then, commencing with that simple molecular disturb- 
ance within the battery, we see the force generated by those 
movements manifested first as chemical action. This is converted 
into electricity, the electricity into heat, and the heat into light, 
and all without the addition to or the subtraction from the 
original force as first made manifest, of anything whatever. 
This proves conclusively that whatever name we may give the 
phenomena exhibited, they are all due to the same cause, have 
the same origin, are convertible the one into the other, are in fact 
all the same thing, differing only in the mode of their manifesta- 
tion and the accompanying phenomena. 
The sun is the great source of light and heat for this earth. 
The so-called rays of the sun may be made manifest to us in many 
different ways. If, for instance, we take our stand with that body 
exposed directly over head, its influence is chiefly exhibited to us 
through that which we call heat. But we may interpose between 
us and the sun crystals of alum, and these will intercept those 6 
NEEYOUS FORCE. 
undulations which are known to us as lieat; or, in other words, 
it will so change the character of these vibrations that the sun’s 
influence is no longer manifest to us as heat, but the heat rays 
have become light beams. In other words the heat is converted 
into light. Again, we may interpose another substance and 
there is neither heat or light in the sun’s influence, but its rays 
now induce those molecular changes which we know as chemical 
action. Thus the same ray of the sun may be changed and made 
manifest to us as light, heat, chemism and electricity. 
Force, then, is but a mode of motion, and according to the 
manner in which it is manifest to our senses we call it by the 
names which I have considered. But force may remain latent for 
an indefinite time. In my school-boy days, when we considered 
heat or caloric, we called it either sensible or latent. Further 
study will teach us that such terms are the result of our lack of 
understanding of the subject. There may, in one sense, be such 
a thing as latent force, but heat is only a method of the manifes- 
tation of force. The sun, as I have said, is the origin of all force, 
because within its body certain changes were originally organized 
and put in motion, whether by Omnipotent Power, as our system 
of theology teaches, or by inherent qualities, as materialists claim, 
matters not in this connection. These molecular changes are the 
origin of the unit force. The effect of these changes is eternal, 
imperishable, indestructible. But they are not necessarily inces- 
sant. They may be stored up, imprisoned, only to be liberated 
through the transferrence of some other influence, as thus : In 
the early carboniferous ages, the force liberated through the 
changes going on within the sphere of the sun being manifested 
upon the earth as light, heat, and chemism, induced certain 
molecular changes here, which resulted in the new combination 
of the elements of matter then existent, and the consequence was 
an extraordinary organic growth, and the formation of the car- 
boniferous forests. The continued force which has its initial 
point in the sun, still active, but modified by previous changes of 
the same matter,'and by self-limiting, environing circumstances, 
finally resulted in those immense carbon deposits which to day 
form our coal fields. The coal which burns in my grate is but 
the imprisoned force which was originally derived from the sun, 
and which came in the form of light, heat, electrical and chemical NERVOUS FORCE. 
changes. For the proof of this we have but to subject it to favora- 
ble influences and there will be returned to nature the same identi- 
cal light, heat, chemical and electrical forces which so long ago lay 
inactive, dormant, latent, imprisoned within the coal bed. It is 
capable of demonstration that the amount returned is the exact 
amount so long ago received from the sun. But the light, heat, 
etc., or in other words the force liberated in my grate, is not lost 
or wasted, but is absorbed, appropriated, perhaps imprisoned- 
within other masses of matter, to be in turn again yielded up, and 
again utilized. Or, it may be, the force so eliminated from the 
coal is at once made manifest in some other mode of motion, and 
thus transmitted on, and on, now exhibited as heat, now as elec- 
tricity, and again as light or chemical affinity. 
I might enumerate innumerable instances wherein one man- 
ifestation of the unit force is changed into another. I might 
speak of the heat, the light, and the electricity, which in various 
ways accompany or are the result of all chemical action. 
I might show that electricity, and light, and chemical action, 
are ever attendent upon the development of heat, and that heat 
and light, and electricity, are the accompaniments of the develop- 
ment of chemical action; but it is all summed up in the declara- 
tion that all movements of matter, in whatsoever way they may 
be brought about, are producers of the unit force in some one or 
more of the methods of its manifestation. I cannot open or shut 
my jack-knife without the evolution of heat and electricity in 
greater or less degree. If I bring the blade of my knife in quick, 
sharp contact with another substance sufficiently hard and brittle, 
heat and light are made evident to the senses, as in the use of 
the flint and steel. 
The evolution of force and its methods of manifestation, are 
controlled by definite laws which are as yet in a great degree 
unknown to us. Prof. Grove says, that the law or rule as to the 
production of heat or electricity from friction or percussion is, 
that where the mutually impinging bodies are homogeneous, 
heat is the consequence’; but where they are heterogeneous, elec- 
tricity is evolved, although either is in a greater or less degree 
the constant accompaniment of the evolution of the other. In 
fact, it is true that the production of one force or mode of 
motion is, as a rule, accompanied with more or less of the 8 
NERVOUS FORCE. 
others. The beautiful photographic process, which is but the 
conversion of light into the molecular motion commonly known 
as chemical action, is accompanied with the evolution of heat 
and electricity, though in quantity not appreciable to anything 
but the most delicate apparatus. If I bend a poker across a 
chair back, the molecular disturbance of the iron, if it be meas- 
ured by thermometers and electrometers of sufficient delicacy, will 
distinctly show an alteration in temperature and electrical condi- 
tion ; and this is true of every change in the relative relation of 
the atoms which go to make up matter. 
Matter is composed mainly of four simple elements : oxygen, 
hydrogen, nitrogen and carbon. Of these four, three are gaseous, 
and their atoms move freely, and with little friction. Many of 
the compounds of these elements are what is called allotropic or 
isomeric—that is, two bodies are composed of exactly the same 
number of atoms of each element, and yet they are totally unlike, 
because the relation of the atoms is not the same. Thus the oils 
of turpentine, lemon and juniper, are chemically the same, yet 
physically different. So that it is seen that very slight atomic or 
molecular changes produce wide divergencies in the character of 
compounds. Then, too, there is abundant opportunity for such 
changes to be brought about by a very slight exertion of force. 
The compounds of nitrogen (and this includes all the so-called 
albuminoids) are very unstable, and are ever seeking for some 
more permanent union. The exhibition of the slightest force is 
sufficient to induce a disruption of imprisoned chemical affinities 
which may result in wide changes. 
Again, compounded matter exists in a number of forms, as 
gaseous, liquid, and solid. Of these the first two are easily im- 
pressed, and molecular changes are constantly going on. Solid 
matter exists in two different states—the colloid and the crystal- 
loid. Of these the first is unstable and exceedingly mutable. So 
that of all the forms in which matter exists there is but one in 
which it is not easily changed and made to assume new molecular 
conditions. We have shown that every molecular disturbance, 
however induced, is followed by the evolution or the transferrence 
of some one or more of the various manifestations of force. 
Given then, that most forms of matter readily undergo molecular 
and other changes, and that the manifestations of existent force, NERVOUS FORCE. 
9 
such as light, heat, chemism, etc., are constantly active, and that 
such action can by possibility only result in still another transfer - 
rence of force, it may readily be seen how unceasing must be the 
phenomena presented by all these mutations and mutually in- 
duced changes. Every wave of force exerted at the initial 
period of this universe has been, since that time, and will ever be 
existent, and either constantly, actively excited, or passively 
imprisoned by superior force. Matter is, under the action of 
force, constantly being disintegrated, and its constituent particles 
built anew into fresh forms. And so this tearing down and redis- 
tribution of matter is, under the dominion of force, constantly 
going on. Every organized being, whether animal or vegetable, 
has its period of molecular aggregation, of growth and so-called 
nutrition, of active, progressive changes, and then the same forces 
which have resulted in the combination of the molecules which 
make up its substance, are again active in those yet further 
molecular changes which bring about its morphological destruc- 
tion. I say the same forces which brought together the molecules 
which composed this body of mine, will in time insure their 
separation, and thus bring about the disintegration of solid and 
fluid tissues, and return them again to the common stock of mat- 
ter, while the energies which brought about these definitive 
changes, through the reaction of the matter thus metamorphosed, 
will in time be transformed into other forces, and itself returned 
again to the parent or unit force whence it was segregated, and 
thus will all that which goes to make up this Ego, this individual 
I, be returned again to that great source from which it emanated. 
If this dictum of the unity and the conditions of forces be 
admitted as true in its application to the various forces of which 
we have been speaking, are we not justified in assuming that the 
law is general throughout the material universe % And whether 
we study this unity as exhibited in the macro-cosmos, or in the 
micro-cosmos—in the revolutions of solar systems, or that affinity 
which binds together two atoms—in those early convulsions which 
resulted in the upheaval of continents, or the change which culmi- 
nates in the growth of a blade of grass—in the devastating earth- 
quake, or the fall of a leaf in autumn—in the wheeling in infinite 
space of a planet, or the infinitesimal vibrations of a ray of light 
—in the action of volcanic fires, or the molecular changes within 10 
NERVOUS FORCE. 
the single battery cell, we shall see that in any extreme it unfail- 
ingly exhibits the same characteristics. It is the exhibition of the 
same force which results in the molecular aggregation called man, 
and that of the lowest organic life. Within the two organiza- 
tions constant definitive changes are going on that differ but in 
degree. The results of those changes in the two are precisely 
alike in fact. Life, vitality, in the one is, in a physical sense, pre- 
cisely what it is in the other, except that in the lower it is simple 
and all the processes are elementary, in the higher it is complex 
and not readily comprehended. 
And now, having considered the law of the correlation of 
forces in its application to the lower forms of matter, shall we 
stop when we are just upon the threshold of the secret places of 
nature ? We have shown that in inorganic life the law prevails and 
answers all the phenomena there exhibited. Shall we admit that 
the harmonies of nature become discords when they are played 
upon the strings of a more perfect instrument? As we rise in 
the scale of existence, shall we conclude that where, before, all was 
beauty, and harmony, and exactness, now all becomes discord, 
and falsehood, and incongruity ? • Shall we admit that the laws 
which are universal m the lower objects, are suspended when we 
arrive at the point where they are most needed to make things 
congruous? The world has long accepted as a fact the belief 
that man is a law unto himself, and that his physical being is not 
subject to the rules which govern all the rest of creation. The 
life of one of the lower animals was thought to be one thing, 
that of man to partake of a very different essence. That the 
vitality of the shrub which grows by the wayside had no kind of 
resemblance to the flower which blooms in our gardens. Let us 
look into this thing. 
My subject, as announced, is nervous force. Perhaps many 
of you have wondered if I were to pay it the respect of a passing 
glance, and if so, what my long prelude meant. It was necessary 
that we first establish and make clear to your comprehension the 
doctrine of the correlation of forces, before we attempted to 
apply it to other and higher uses. 
We have seen that the light and heat of the sun, under 
favoring conditions, have developed or been transformed into 
other forces. We have examined those forces, and have found NERVOUS FORCE. 
11 
them a unit in their origin, though diverse in their mode of hnani- 
festation. We have seen that light may be changed]'into heat, 
heat into electricity, and that into chemical affinity. That all 
these so-called forces are mutually interchangeable, alike,' identi- 
cal. That each is the result of certain molecular changes, them- 
selves induced by manifestations of other varieties of the unit 
force. We know that all organic bodies, whether of low or high 
degree, are composed of the same atoms that unite to form other 
matter, and, therefore, they must be amenable to the same laws. 
There are certain phenomena connected with living matter 
called vital phenomena. Under the old hypothesis that there 
were many kinds of force, and that each was an entity, acting in 
an independent manner upon such matter as was subject to its 
influence, it was easy to suppose that nervous force was a some- 
thing distinct and bv itself, and that it was not subject to the 
laws which governed other forces. When it was believed that 
magnetic attraction was a pervading something which established 
a kind of affection between certain substances, and aversion toward 
others, and that this attraction was a thing by itself, dominated 
only by its own laws, and owing no allegiance to the principles 
which governed the relations of other matter, then it was easy to 
imagine that nervous force was a principle alike distinct, sepa 
rate, and removed from all other dominant forces. In that early 
day there was no harmony in nature, but a continued clashing 
and discord among mutually contending forces. Let us now sup- 
pose that nervous impulse is but another mode of manifestation 
of the unit parent force, and how quickly all becomes harmony 
and beauty. 
The lapse of time admonishes me that I cannot pursue this 
enquiry with all the minuteness with which I endeavored to 
examine the physical forces, but that all force is identical, inter- 
changeable and the same, seems to me plain from a number of 
reasons. In the first place it is derived from the same source. 
The same molecular changes and mutations which in the battery 
cell result in the evolution, or more strictly speaking the segrega- 
tion of electrical force, here is manifest as nervous force. We are 
constantly supplying the elements of this nervous battery, in the 
food which we take, and these molecular changes which we 
denominate digestion and assimilation, resuit as such changes ever 12 
NERVOUS FORCE. 
do, and must result, in the elimination of a force which, in this 
method of manifestation, we call nervous force. 
If an animal be deprived of every kind of food except fats, 
it finally dies of inanition, though there is no apparent emaciation. 
The changes incident and necessary to nutrition cannot be carried 
on in the absence of necessary elements. So the molecular 
changes of the digestive process having partially ceased, there is 
a consequent diminution in the evolution of nervous force, which 
finally results in complete functional stasis, or death. 
Again, that nervous force is identical with the other forces is 
manifest from the fact that in many of its phenomena it is the 
same. As light and heat are modified bv other forces, as well as 
by the circumstances under which they are made manifest, so 
nervous force is dominated the environments which surround 
its elimination and exhibition. The methods in which the changes 
which result in light and heat progress, the elements taking part 
in such changes, all have an influence upon the characteristic of 
the force so generated. This is also true of nervous force. When 
the molecular changes going on within the body in which is gen- 
erated nervous force are most active, the force generated is 
great. When these changes cease, nervous force is no longer 
generated, and the body is dead. When the products of these 
changes are for any reason transformed into heat, as in certain 
pathological conditions like fever and inflammations, nervous force 
is decreased. If the body be subjected to intense cold, the trans- 
formation of these changes into force is retarded, and not only is 
the temperature of the body reduced, but nervous force is dimin- 
ished, and the organs which are controlled and regulated by it 
become torpid. Certain drugs have the power entirely to suspend 
these transferences of force, or to modify them greatly. So in 
the generation of other forces through the chemical or other 
changes which induce them, the elimination or action may be 
modified or suspended by the introduction of interfering matter. 
Nervous force may be changed into other forces, and on the 
other hand, light, heat and electricity may be transformed into 
nervous force. It is not sufficient that the tadpole be furnished 
with the necessary food and heat for its development into a frog. 
Unless light be given him he remains in his tadpole state. If 
heat be not supplied to the freezing animal there will be no NERVOUS FORCE. 
13 
nervous force, and how familiar is every physician with the fact 
that when nervous force seems exhausted, the mere application 
of heat supplies the needed nervous impulse; how else than by a 
transferrence of the force ? If I apply the poles of a powerful 
battery to the nerves of an animal in which the evolution of 
nervous force is quite suspended, all the effects of that force are 
manifested. The heart can be made to beat, and any special 
muscle to act as in life, for a limited time; how else than by the 
transferrence of this mode of manifestation of the unit force? 
Electricity seems more nearly correlated to nervous force, than is 
any other mode of motion. Indeed, in some animals they seem 
interchangeable at will. Thus the gymnotus, or electrical eel, by 
the possession of a more than usually complicated nervous appa- 
ratus, can give electrical shocks of considerable power at volition. 
The fire-flies and glow-worms are also provided with special 
organs by means of which they can at will emit light, as the 
gymnotus does electricity; that is, nervous force is transmitted 
into light. In all such animals, when nervous force is exhausted, 
when they are tired out bv continued irritation or excitement, 
this power to emit light or electricity is gone, and it returns only 
when the nervous impulse is again perfect. 
The laws which govern the manifestation of nerve impulse are 
less understood than those dominating the other forces. The 
force itself seems, like an algebraic expression, to be raised to a 
higher power, but that it therefore differs from the others does 
not follow. "When in the light of the theory of the correlation of 
forces it is intelligently studied, we may hope that its phenomena 
will be better understood, and its conservation become a wrought 
out problem. We have learned how electricity may be stored up, 
imprisoned against a time of need. Why should we not discover 
the same thing concerning its nearly related nervous force ? When 
the battery ceases to work we know how, within certain limits, 
to remedy the defect. What hinders our learning the same thing 
of the nervous system ? Many men have striven to gain this 
knowledge, but not, so far as I know, in the light of the latest 
revelations of science. Nervous force has been regarded as elec- 
tricity once was : as an entity, an entirety; as something distinct 
from other forces. It is time that men began its investigation 
from another standpoint. NERVOUS FORCE. 
In the first pages of this hastily written paper I said that the 
progression of force is, so far as we now know, by undulations, 
and onward, wave-like motions. This is by experiment demon- 
strated to be true of nervous force. Even the rate of this advance 
has been determinately measured, and found to be in the motor 
nerves about 110, and in the sensory nerves about 140 feet per 
second; so that we see in its mode of progression it obeys the law 
governing other forces. 
Of the manner in which nerve force is eliminated we know 
little, but that it is in some way through the nerve centres 
we are convinced. Experiment has proved this, and at the same 
time established the fact of its close correlation to the other 
forces. When the nerve centers are destroyed or paralyzed, not 
only is the production of nerve force stopped, but the body 
quickly cools. Upon sending a current of electricity along the 
course of the nerves, the bodily heat or temperature rises, so 
closely are these forces connected. If an organic body be 
deprived of light, not only is nervous force diminished, but the 
temperature is lowered. 
We have all known persons Avhose hair during conditions of 
nervous excitement would stand on end, and from whom at such 
times could be drawn distinct electric shocks. I know a man 
who, by inducing a restless, agitated nervous state in favorable 
atmospheric condition, can light a gas jet by simply holding his 
finger tip to the burner. These states are always succeeded by 
nervous depression, undoubtedly due to a loss of nervous power, 
through its transmutations into electrical force. 
That nervous force is very closely correlated with electrical 
force is again proved by the fact that all persons of highly 
wrought nervous organization suffer extremely during electrical 
disturbances. So-called magnetic storms induce a condition of 
great nervous exaltation in many people. Nervously anaemic 
people derive strength from a gentle electric current, because of 
its conversion into nervous power. People who suffer from 
nervous irritability find an exacerbation in electricity. That is, 
when the lesion is of the nerve centres, the generators of nerve 
force, electricity is beneficial; when in the conducting nerve 
filaments, it is aggravative, for obvious reasons. 
There are many other points and arguments which I should NERVOUS FORCE. 
15 
be glad to present, but this paper is already too long, and I must 
leave the consideration of the subject. I desired to say something 
concerning a kind of nervous ebb and flow in certain of the 
vegetable kingdom—to speak of the stinging nettles, and of certain 
jelly-fishes which without a discoverable nervous system, yet give 
distinct shocks through some occult means—to speak further of 
the inordinate waste of nervous force in certain states of excite- 
ment or passion—to say something about the anatomy of the 
nervous system, and to examine a little the phenomena of exces- 
sive nervous irritability. I am even leaving almost untouched 
one great division of my subject—nervous lesions. I can only 
plead the vastness of the subject, and the impossibility of doing 
more than to make a brief presentation of it within the limits of 
a paper like this. 
The importance of a more careful study of the physiology of 
nervous forces is apparent when we remember that the type of 
American diseases is to-day distinctly nervous, and that from year 
to year it is growing more so. Reflecting men in the medical pro- 
fession have begun to recognize that we are making little progress 
in learning to combat these ills, and are seriously looking about 
for the reason. Some of the most profound thinkers in medicine 
have turned their attention almost exclusively to this field. They 
have advanced little further than to discover the cause of certain 
troubles, and lament the inability of the profession to grapple 
with and overcome the difficulty. Books have been written 
which have stirred medical men up to a recognition of the import- 
ance of this subject, without convincing their authors that they 
themselves fullv comprehended the matter. Is it not time that 
investigation began from a ne w standpoint ? Is it not time that 
enquiry took another direction ? If any one has studied the sub- 
ject from the vantage ground of the correlation of nervous 
impulse with the other forces, I am not aware of it; but I hope 
that this may be a door which shall enable some one to enter 
upon a field that will give richer returns than any have yet 
yielded.