Electro-physiology and electro-therapeutics : showing the best methods for the medical uses of electricity / By Alfred C. Garratt.
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the nerves, and from the feet to the head. This action was often seen to continue for several hours, as the tissues of cold- blooded animals maintain the properties of life much longer than those of warm-blooded animals. Thus M. Nobili, in 1827, ascertained and demonstrated these facts, by means free from every objection, and denominated the phenomena " the current proper of the frog." Nobili found, if he touched the nerve and muscle of one frog, with the nerve and muscle of another frog, that there was no effect on the delicate galvanometer needle, showing that the one current was opposed to the other, and thus they balanced; but when he placed the nerve of one frog in contact with the muscle of another frog, then the needle deviated and a powerful contraction took place. But we must not follow now the fascinating progress of M. Nobili; for we are already arrived at the very portico of electro-physiology, that leads into a new and spacious wing of the temple of science. Here we shall find not only the cabinet of nature's laws by No- bili, but on the one hand we find Matteucci, and Marianini, and Volta, and Faraday; while on the other are Baron Humboldt, Dubois-Reymond, Todd, Copeland, Becquerel, Rernak, Du- chenne, Brown-Sequard, — together a mighty host. Let us then retrace our steps, and observe first what contemporaries have been doing since Humboldt left those countries for his memo- rable travels through our own America. History of Electro-Physiologic and Electro-Therapeutic Researches. I consider those observations, so early made by MM. Volta and Ritter, as being siiggestive and important. Dr. Volta says, " These experiments can some day become applicable to physi- ology, as well as aid to the practice of medicine." But these expectations and prophetic declarations of that great physician are not as yet fulfilled, nor will they ever be realized fully until " the experiments " are directed more to feel the way to prac- tice, rather than to discover the so-called theory of convulsion. Let but these same men turn their efforts to tracing the work-