Electro-physiology and electro-therapeutics : showing the best methods for the medical uses of electricity / By Alfred C. Garratt.
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Let us then, at least, take a glimpse at the influencing and often controlling power of electricity, as it relates to animal organization, by observing isolated facts, that are indirect as well as direct. Gay-Lussac succeeded in bringing about fer- mentation in the pure juice of the grape, which had been pre- served, by protection from the air, in carefully sealed jars; which lie did simply by means of platinum points, projecting within the jar for that purpose, and so conducting a galvanic cur- rent through the contained juice. From this it is proved that oxygen, from the electrolytic action, was actually developed at the poles within the air-tight jar, and thus became the cause of the fermentation, which it is known cannot take place where there is no oxygen. The coagulation of albumen about the negative pole of an active current, observed by M. Lasaigne, is also the result of the presence, at this electrode, of acid, arising from the decomposi- tion of certain salts. M. Becquerel observed repeatedly, that, while oxygen facilitates germination about the positive pole, it also frequently occurred that the acid, which is also liberated at this electrode, produces the contrary effects. In such a case, it is noticed that the seed grows best at the negative pole, where an alkaline base is accumulating. It is now evident, that the electric current acts alike upon vegetable and animal matter as electrolytes, and that it must necessarily bring about, sooner or later, a change in the organized body that is so subjected to the proper current. Alexander von Humboldt, in order to test accurately the physiological effects of immediate galvanism, says he caused a blister, of the size of a crown dollar, to be placed on each of his own shoulders. They occupied the upper and outer portion of the deltoid muscles. When those two blisters were opened, he says there trickled down his back the ordinary clear serum, which dried on the skin, showing nothing but a delicate gloss from the contained lymph, and which was readily washed off with simple water. The right blister was first experimented upon, by placing over it, in immediate contact with the raw place, a small plate of silver, that mostly covered this denuded