On the application of the theory of dissociation of Arrhenius electrolyte solutions to electrophysiology

Some 150 years passed since the time when the idea was first expressed that the source of nervous power is electricity (Gausen, 1743). So much noise was overtaken in the past century by Mesmer's statements, which also explained how the special manifestation of electrical and magnetic forces, even more strengthened the faith, if not into identity, then) at least, into a close kinship of the energetic beginning of electricity. But, apart from abstract considerations, there was no direct evidence in support of these views in science. Only half a century later, after Gausen Galvani made his famous discovery that the muscles of a dissected frog's leg contract if the sciatic nerve and the lower part of it are connected with a metal conducting arc. Galvani, as is known, attributed this phenomenon to the presence of electrical forces generated in itself by the living tissue itself. But soon Volta arose against this view, who believed in this case the source of electricity not in the very tissues of the frog, but in the place of contact of the metal of the conducting arc with the liquid of living tissue. It was here that the beginning of that endless dispute was laid, which has been going on for a whole century and has not yet received a final solution, and which can be formulated as follows: does living protoplasm have independent sources of electric motor force, or does the electric phenomenon observed in living tissues only secondary results of the chemical or physical conditions that this tissue represents at a given moment, and do not have any direct connection with its functional activity? This question of enormous theoretical and practical interest, despite the mass of works of many outstanding scientists, has not yet received a satisfactory answer. Professor Biderman, in his extensive work on electrophysiology, which appeared last year, expresses himself on this matter as follows: the results of individual experiments and an almost complete lack of knowledge of the scope of their significance for the function of the underlying tissues. " (W. Biedermann. Elektrophysiologie. I. Abtheil. S. 273. Jena 1895).