ELECTRICITY AND THE SENSES.

Oamaru Mail, Volume XXXIX, Issue 10760, 6 May 1911, Page 3 (Supplement)

ELECTRICITY AND THE SENSES.

(By Alec Alan.) Here is an idea awaiting considera-. .tion for elucidation or elimination by Edison and the scientists. The idea came to me on seeing first a photograph of a "wireless" apparatus and, shortly after, a magnified picture of the head and antennae of some insect or other crawling creature. These tentacles, I have been told or have read, are to their owner for eye's or ears, or such other organ of sense that is necessary to- their being. They seem to catch sensations from, their locality just as the "wireless" stations pick up messages that reach theirs. Generally' speaking, the organs .of our senses lie fairly compacted in our heads, near the sensitive brain or medulla. Antennas, like the station points, are. spread out to catch sensations that niay come within their scope'. Like these points, too, they convey what they catch to the working centre", where the message is analysed and, when understood, acted on. What the Marconi apparatus catches is conveyed to it by electricity, and that electricity, passing. on to the tinderstanding centre, produces action,—the very action that the current was sent to produce,—and the message is indicated there in the manner provided. The action of making dots, long or short, is equivalent to Tetters, words', sentences, and they are understood by the expert in charge, who translates them into'speech or writing, and so passes the message on to its destination. A Marconigrapli is now made capable, within a circumscribed distance, of carrying sound and picking it up again, and thus telephoning by it has become possible. Not only does electricity now enable ns to hear from distances impossible under natural conditions, but by the same medium colors can be conveyed. Thus both the natural voice of a person telephoning may bo heard, ani his verisimilitude as a picture be seen; at the end of the electric wire distant from liim. Here, therefore, we have electricity enabling ris to transmit variations of sound and of light or color. Electricity in this' way acts is life does in the organs of hearing and of sight. That it can act as a "thrill on the nerves of touch has long been known. That it can produce muscular "action has also been verified- One of the earliest experiments with electricity in connection with life was to cause the amputated leg of a dead frog to kick, as if it were alive, by the application of a current to the muscles. The nervous system of the bodies of men and other animals lias often been likened to the system of an electric service. through which messages are sent to and fro between the brain and the various parts of the body, more especially with the muscles of motion. The particular nerves attached to these both carry messages and report progress. The severing of a ' net ve has an effect similar to the cutting _ of an electric wire: it stops communication. It will now remain with the scientists to discover whether there is any more than a similarity in the systems: —if there be not really in.use by our nerves and sensory organs a form and service of electricity.