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Referee's report by Charles Vernon Boys, on a paper 'The interpretation of photographic records of the response of nerve obtained with the capillary electrometer' by George James Burch

Reference number: RR/15/308

Date: 15 February 1902

Description

Sectional Committee: not stated.

Recommended for publication in Proceedings, if the physiologists are satisfied. Has read the paper with great care more than once but feels difficulty in reporting upon in on account of his ignorance of physiology and provides an example of this. The process of summation and verification by reference to actual charts and records in the paper seems very clear and without apparent error. If the point of the paper is to prove the fundamental assumption by the agreement of the records with the very various possible consequences which he explains or predicts, he does not feel satisfied that other fundamental assumptions could not also lead to all the variations and complexities equally well.

The paper has done nothing to clear up what is the physiologist's ignorance of what the stimulated nerve really creates. Discusses using a capillary electrometer to take measurements of the nerve. Discusses measuring the E.M.F. capable of being produced by the nerve. Suggests how they could test the suggested inability of the nerve to supply all the current required to charge the electrometer without falling in E.M.F. Suggests seconds be indicated throughout the paper by 's' rather than 'which' means seconds of arc, and queries the correctness of an equation on page 25.

[Published in Proceedings of the Royal Society, 1902].

Reference number
RR/15/308
Earliest possible date
15 February 1902
Physical description
Report on paper
Page extent
4 pages
Format
Manuscript

Creator name

Charles Vernon Boys

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Citation

Charles Vernon Boys, Referee's report by Charles Vernon Boys, on a paper 'The interpretation of photographic records of the response of nerve obtained with the capillary electrometer' by George James Burch, 15 February 1902, RR/15/308, The Royal Society Archives, London, https://makingscience.royalsociety.org/items/rr_15_308/referees-report-by-charles-vernon-boys-on-a-paper-the-interpretation-of-photographic-records-of-the-response-of-nerve-obtained-with-the-capillary-electrometer-by-george-james-burch, accessed on 10 November 2024

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  • Referee Reports

    Date: 1832-1954

    This collection contains reports on scientific papers submitted for publication to the Royal Society. Started in 1832 when the system was formalised, it is a record of the origins of peer review publishing in practice.

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