Alexander Philip Wilson Philip1 to Faraday   13 February 1839

Cavendish Square Feb 13. 1839

My dear Sir

I consider myself much obliged by your present kind mark of attention2. What you have put down requires some modification, as far as I can judge, the observation does not apply to all nerves. We have no reason to believe that the influence conveyed by the nerves of sensation is of the same nature with that conveyed by those nerves which excite the muscles & effect all the chemical changes which constitute so large a portion of the vital functions. I would propose the following -

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Dr Wilson Philip is of opinion that the nerves which excite the muscles & effect the chemical changes of the Vital functions operate by the electric power, supplied by the Brain & spinal marrow; in its effects modified by the vital powers of the of the living animal; because as he informs me as he found, as early as 1815, that, while the vital powers remain, all these functions can be as well performed by Voltaic electricity, after the removal of the nervous Influence, as by that influence itself & in the end of that year he presented a paper to the Royal Society which was read at one of their meetings giving an account of the experiments on which this position was founded3.

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I fear you will think the above rather long, but could not find the means of expressing it more concisely. The paper was read to the Royal Society either at the end of 1815 or in the beginning of 18164. But was not published in consequence of a committee appointed to repeat my exper[imen]ts, leaving, in consequence of a duration from my mode of making them, met with a different result. They were afterwards repeated in my presence, the same operator, Sir Benjamin Brodie, being good enough to perform them under my direction; my results obtained & an account of them publish[ed] in the Philosophical Transactions for 18225.

I fear this long letter has tried your patience[.]

My dear Sir, very truly yours | A.P.W. Philip

1
Alexander Philip Wilson Philip (c1770-c1851, DNB). Physician and physiologist.
2
Faraday had sent the text of Faraday (1839a), ERE15 to Philip for comment before publication.
3
This passage, slightly modified, was added as a note to Faraday (1839a), ERE15, 1791.
4
Alexander Philip Wilson Philip, "Farther Experiments and observations on the relation which subsists between the sanguiferous and nervous systems, particularly on the nature of secretion, the use of the Ganglia & the cause of animal temperature", RS MS AP 8bis. 14. Read 25 January 1816.
5
Philip (1822).

Bibliography

FARADAY, Michael (1839a): “Experimental Researches in Electricity. - Fifteenth Series. Notice of the character and direction of the electric force of the Gymnotus”, Phil. Trans., 129: 1-12.

PHILIP, Alexander Philip Wilson (1822): “Some positions respecting the influence of the Voltaic Battery in obviating the effects of the division of the eighth pair of nerves”, Phil. Trans., 112: 22-3.

Please cite as “Faraday1143,” in Ɛpsilon: The Michael Faraday Collection accessed on 2 May 2024, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/faraday/letters/Faraday1143