Electro-physiology and electro-therapeutics : showing the best methods for the medical uses of electricity / By Alfred C. Garratt.
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duodenum, and from thence out of the body. Now, all these changes appertain to the peripheral nerve batteries, from whence comes our main source of physical power. Other transforma- tions are also going on at the brain pole, particularly those in the gray substance, where phosphorus and red blood are most profusely provided ; for certain it is that mental labor, or a nerve exhaustion from any cause, alio ays loads the urine richly with phosphates. Now, this change of matter causes a continual waste, and demands a new supply ; indeed, if not supplied or remedied, that individual will rapidly dilapidate. The changed matter, which has become the effete material, will clog the system, and interfere with the nervo-voltaic actions, or over- tax the particular organs that continue to eliminate it. Organic disease will soon follow the functional derangement. This is sometimes a great perplexity to the physician ; but what is dif- ficult for us, Nature effects systematically and with the greatest perfection, particularly if we aid her. We perceive that the blood absorbs the carbonic acid just as soon as formed within the capillaries, from the galvanic results, and now it is called venous blood, as it sets out with this its normal freight, washing it along to the lungs to be exhaled. Urea is also absorbed by the venous blood, and carried rather to the kidneys, while the choleic is cast off through the corpus- cules of the liver. If the first important process be stopped but for five minutes, death is the result. If the second is stopped for five days, life may be extinguished. If the third be actually stopped still longer, shorter in some than in others, and that in proportion to the vicarious actions, life dies down inevitably to extinction. This proves that the animal battery for animal electricity must be kept clean ; the batteries must be recharged, on and on, by taking suitable food and med- icine, and we must as regularly and faithfully eliminate the resulting debris. The actual bearing of these investigations, I need hardly state, in the way of both general and special principles in this department of medicine, is in the highest degree instructive. It shows that in whatever process or function of the human