Re Vegetable Electricity

Abstract

THE claim for priority comes from Prof. Bose—implicitly by the note to his paper at the Linnean Society, to which I had to demur—explicitly in his present reply. Prof. Bose bases his claim on the final paragraph of a paper of June 6, 1901, now in the Archives of the Royal Society. If this be regarded as a valid document and date of departure, I shall have something more to say about Prof. Bose's methods. If this date and document be not valid, his claim rests upon a paper at the Linnean Society of July 21, 1902, which seems to me to be a very interesting instance of scientific mimicry. Anyone interested in the study of such phenomena will find it instructive to compare the papers mentioned by Prof. Bose, of November 9, 1901, and July 21, 1902, to the Physiological and Linnean Societies respectively. I think he should also, as regards the general method, consult my Lectures on Animal Electricity of 1897 at the Royal Institution, which have been adopted by Prof. Bose as his point of departure.