Unpublished paper, 'An experimental inquiry undertaken with the view of ascertaining whether any and what signs of current electricity are manipulated in plants, during vegetation' by Henry Foster Baxter

Description

Baxter relates the experimental results that he has arrived at, and which tend to show that electric currents exist in the leaves and in the roots or spongioles ot plants. Becquerel and Wartmann have already proved that electric currents may be obtained in different parts of vegetables, but the object of the paper is to point out the connection of the currents in the above-named organs with the vital or organic changes which take place in them. In consequence of the secondary actions which occur at the electrodes some difficulty is experienced in ascertaining the true or normal result in the roots. Combining however the facts obtained by means of the galvanometer with analogical evidence, Baxter considers that they tend to establish the conclusion, that, during the changes which occur in the leaves and in the roots of plants, current electricity is manifested.

Subject: Electricity / Biology

Received August 1852. Communicated by Thomas Bell.

Whilst the Royal Society declined to publish this paper in full, an abstract of the paper was published in volume 6 of Abstracts of the Papers Printed in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London [later Proceedings of the Royal Society] as 'An experimental inquiry undertaken with the view of ascertaining whether any signs of current electricity are manifested in plants during vegetation'.

Reference number

AP/33/2

Earliest possible date

1852

Physical description

Ink on paper

Page extent

29 pages

Format

Manuscript