| Reference number | RR/15/308 |
| Level | Item |
| Title | 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 |
| 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]. |
| Extent | 4p |
| Format | Manuscript |
| Physical description | Report on paper |
| Digital images | View item on Science in the Making |
| Access status | Open |
| Related material | DOI: 10.1098/rspl.1902.0020 |
| Related records in the catalogue | RR/15/309 |
Fellows associated with this archive
| Code | Name | Dates |
| NA8138 | Boys; Sir; Charles Vernon (1855 - 1944); physicist and inventor | 1855 - 1944 |
| NA1360 | Burch; George James (1852 - 1914); professor of physics | 1852 - 1914 |