THE experiments herein recorded have to do with the influence of the rate of stimulation upon the propagation of the results of electrical stimuli in peripheral nerves. This topic has been the subject of recent investigations by several physiologists, among whom are Dr. F. H. Hooper2 and N. Wedensky,3 who, as a result of their researches, consider the rate of s&zuZatioz to be as important a factor affecting the propagation of nerve force as the inteasity of the stimulus is conceded to be. I shall first describe the experiment on the frog's larynx, then those on the antagonistic muscles of the leg of the animal.
For an account of the physiology of the mammalian larynx the reader is referred to Dr. Hooper's excellent resum4 in the above mentioned paper ( I ) where the experimental results of all the studies of this structure-reaching back some centuries-are recorded. From Dr. Hooper's papers it is clear that even closely related tracheate vertebrates, e g . the dog and the cat, do not agree in the responses made by the laryngeal muscles to similar electrical stimuli, all other conditions of the experiments being so far as known (and they were intended to be) the same.
Owing to this condition of the subject, these experiments, which were begun at the suggestion of Prof. Bowditch, are 1 Performed in the Physiological Iaboratory of the Harvard Medical School, 2 F. H. Hooper, M.D. The Anatomy and Physiology of the Recurrent Laryn-Effects of Varying Rates of Stimulation on the Action of the Ueber die Ursachen des Ritter-Kolletschen Phanomens am 1888-89. geal Nerve. Recurrent Laryngeal Nerves. i6., 1887. 8 N. Wedensky. Fusse des Froches. The N. Y. Med. Journ., 1887. The same.