Electro-physiology and electro-therapeutics : showing the best methods for the medical uses of electricity / By Alfred C. Garratt.
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fall by thousands, which surely would not be the case were noxious miasms inhaled into the lungs during respiration. 10. The immunity of lower animals seems to rise from the comparative density of their integuments, rendering them less liable than man to the influ- ence of electric accumulations, galvanic currents, or the disturbance of the (natural) fluid in them by induction. The hairs or wool being wet at night, serve as pointed conductors, which diffuse or dissipate opposite electrical cur- rents into the earth or air, and prevent their effects on the small brain and nerves of domestic animals. 11. That the general immunity of blacks (even of those who have lived long in our climate) from malarious diseases appears to prove that inspiration of malarious air by the lungs is not absolutely noxious, and that the cutaneous texture, oily secretions, and non-conducting varnish of their daily anointing and painting, render their skins less susceptible or more repulsive of electric agencies than the integuments of whites. The black color, as it absorbs heat sooner than white, may also make a difference in the electric conducting power. Even a black silk thread, or ribbon, or stocking, presents very different electri- cal phenomena from those of white twist or white fabrics of the same texture. 12. That this doctrine of electrical origin of malarious diseases enables us to approach much more nearly to salutary means of prevention, than the old theory of inhalation of miasms wafted in the air can lead us to apply pre- ventive measures against. 13. That, with this view, in order to enable colonies to be planted upon insalubrious regions, I propose to drain some suitable sites thoroughly; to place a horizontal zinc or copper rod, or tube, in each drain ; then to connect these cross-wires, or tubes, with two or more upright conducting or lightning rods, to carry away excess of electricity outside the habitation, and not to per- mit its passage up or down through the house or tenement, or through the bodies of its inmates. 14. That many trials have convinced me, that houses when built upon such insulated platforms, floored with non-conducting composts of asphalt or bitu- men, and protected above and below from electric currents by copper tubes or wires, are comparatively healthy in all situations. These insulated chambers prevent the natural electricity of the bodies of men from being untowardly augmented, diminished, or irregularly distributed through them, by the abstract- ed or the excited electricity either of the earth or of the air, as I have many times witnessed. 15. That as many failures have occurred to common protecting lightning rods for want of moisture in the ground, in dry seasons and arid elevations, I have found hollow pipes, similar to our copper gas tubes, to present several advantages as lightning rods: by terminating below in the horizontal pipes or drains containing water, and by being always wet inside by the rain con- tained in them, their efficiency is secured. 16. This principle of insulating the areas or ground upon which the build-