Electro-physiology and electro-therapeutics : showing the best methods for the medical uses of electricity / By Alfred C. Garratt.
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those patients, young or old, the positive electric air-bath, taken sitting or reclining in an insulated easy-chair, with the feet upon the insulating stool, for half an hour a day, and occasionally alternated by sparks drawn, is a rational and often successful remedy. The machine requires to be turned very steadily and quickly, while the chain or rod director from the prime conductor is held in the patient's hands. At the same time, see that ample provision is made for the escape of the negative electricity — i. e., from the rubber end of the electrical machine to moist ground, or to some mass of iron, if near by. This can be clone by a chain leading from it to the water or gas pipe. A dry brick wall, we must remember, will not always do this well. Now, as the patient becomes more highly charged positively, the hair will rise ; and should the room happen to be dark, numerous sparks and luminous appearances will be observed, because the atmos- phere about the patient is rendered negative, as it always is about a highly positive body. I have repeatedly heard the pa- tients say, in the course of five or ten minutes after the seance begins, that they are warmer, and feel exhilarated. The circu- lation is found to be decidedly accelerated; and the secretions, especially the perspiration, become more active and general. To give the negative electric air-bath, we have only to change the conductors so that now the prime conductor connects with the earth, while that of the rubber must lead to the patient. This negative electric state is said to be an electric antiphlogis- tic, acting by depriving or drawing off from the organism its morbid accumulation. But we cannot see the reason, nor can we corroborate these deductions from any experience, as in our hands the testimony on this point has always resulted negatively. (See p. 98.) Sparks may be given to, or drawn from, any part of the body, but they can be most readily obtained on a dry surface ; for if the skin or the patient's clothing is moist, the discharge is thus dissipated, and we get no spark. Electrization by this means has been greatly esteemed by some experienced physicians for its success in curing chorea, hysteria, colds, rheumatisms, some forms of paralysis, and neuralgia.