On Signor Carlo Matteucciʼs letter to H. Bence Jones : editor of an abstract of Dr. Bois-Reymondʼs Researches in animal electricity / by Emil Du Bois-Reymond.

  • Emil du Bois-Reymond
Date:
1853
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On Signor Carlo Matteucciʼs letter to H. Bence Jones : editor of an abstract of Dr. Bois-Reymondʼs Researches in animal electricity / by Emil Du Bois-Reymond. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Glasgow Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Glasgow Library.

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    question three years ago, and gave a verdict by which I am most willing to abide. In England, on the contrary, the matter is as yet almost new, and requires, perhaps, some elucidation on my part in order to be judged correctly. This information I have endeavoured to give in the following pages. In going over them, the reader, I trust, will remember the fatality naturally attached to the con- dition of every defendant, namely, that often many pages may be necessary for confuting an accusation expressed in a single line. As I had no means of knowing who among the scientific men of England were favoured by Signor Matteucci with copies of his pamphlet, I have been obliged to give my reply as wide a circulation as possible by the ordinary way of publication. § I. Signor Matteucci's former Attacks upon the Author. It may be inferred from the preceding that it is not the first time that I have been the subject of Signor Matteucci's attacks. He has written against me thrice previously, and each time he has been the assailant. The first time was in 1845.* T had mentioned his name once previously in my first paper of 1843, and I did so very respect- fully. I did not answer this first attack explicitly, although it was an exceedingly violent one. Some years later, it is true, I reviewed Signor Matteucci's papers, in the Keport of the Physical Society of Berlin,t and in my German work, and of course made the best of my defence. But as these strictures were written in German, they seem to have escaped his attention at the time, It was not until the spring of 1850, when I com- municated two papers to the Academy of Paris,t in which he was faithfully and respectfully quoted, thathe attacked me again in the * '■-Annales de Chimie et de Physique. 3» Scrie, t. xv., p. 64. Archives de TF.lpft-ripitp i)ar Mr. de la Rive, t. v., p. 382. f '' Die ForSchritte der Physik im Jahre 1845. DargesteUt von der phy- sikaliBchen Gesellschaft zu Berlin. I. Jahrgang Redigirt von Dr G Karsten. Berlin 1847. S. 499. See also the same work, II. Jahrgang (1846). b. 4d0. nales de Chimie ct de Physique. 3^ Serie, t. xxx., p. 119 et 1/9.