Effects of Constant Current in Relation to 'Functional Polarity'

Abstract

WHEREAS the effect of constant currents on the peripheral nerve has been thoroughly investigated, very little work has been done on the effects of such currents on the central nervous system. However, during the last few years, a number of papers has been published by Scheminzky and his co-workers. They found that the effect of passing a constant current through a frog depended on the direction of the current. While a descending current (that is, in the head-to-foot direction) produced paralysis (galvano-narcosis), an ascending current produced convulsions. Scheminzky thought that it was impossible to explain this phenomenon in any other way than by a 'functional polarity', involving an assumption that the whole of the central nervous system is built up of a series of polarized elements, succeeding each other along the axis of the system. He claims to have discovered "a new law of the general physiology of the central nervous system"—a law which would be rather difficult to understand.