Note 243 — No. XXVI.

Galvanic fires—Dr. Galvani is a celebrated philosopher at Turin. He has proved that the electric fluid is the proximate cause of nervous sensibility; and Mr. Higgins is of opinion that by means of this discovery, the sphere of our disagreeable sensations may be, in future, considerably enlarged. “Since dead frogs (says he) are awakened by this fluid to such a degree of posthumous sensibility as to jump out of the glass in which they are placed, why not men, who are sometimes so much more sensible when alive? And if so, why not employ this new stimulus to deter mankind from dying (which they so pertinaciously continue to do) of various old-fashioned diseases, notwithstanding all the brilliant discoveries of modern philosophy, and the example of Count Cagliostro?”