Electro-physiology and electro-therapeutics : showing the best methods for the medical uses of electricity / By Alfred C. Garratt.

nerves, muscles, and many of the secretions can be more surely and more uniformly called into their natural action by means of electricity than by any other known agent, and that the degree and kind of that effect is widely dif- ferent, according to the form, quantity, or intensity of the electricity employed, and that again modified as widely, according to the methods of administering the dose at each se'ance, it is to be expected that the existing differences of opinions as to the healing power, or the manageable and remedial value of electricity, will be more nearly harmonized, and that on an intelligent basis. It must not be thought certain that the electric current exercises an in- working influence only on or through the nerves and muscles. It is, on the con- trary, my intention to aid medical men to become familiar with the idea, that all textures of the living animal body, being saturated, as they are, with the saline solutions of the blood and other secretions of the animal economy, are peculiarly accessible to the chemical and mechanical workings of the static, galvanic, and electro-magnetic currents; that these workings, as demon- strated by Dr. Robert Remak, do appear in the living human body, ivithin certain limits — not simply as dissolving or chemically decomposing, (lytic,) so much as changing, (catalysis;) thus, in a degree, causing the nerves and muscles to be so largely influenced, because of their plumping up with more saline moisture, which, doubtless, enables the ultimate structure of all the* organism to exercise more mobility in the fine molecules of their respective tissues for performing functional action. But after all, to my own mind, it is only by the most minute and slowly maturing experiences in the analogous workings of these currents in different living tissues, that insight and confi- dence can be obtained, which are so necessary for the rational application of electric currents for curing diseases. I trust this work will present a phalanx of facts, as well as many original, practical directions for obtaining physio- logical and therapeutical results, that will be found worthy of a candid atten- tion, and lead on to fresh researches in this inviting department of medical science. Finally, the author of this work has aimed by directness, thoroughness, and extent of practical research, thus presented by himself or by accredited au- thorities ; by ample plates of apparatus, and of anatomy; by great simplicity in style, and freedom from technicalities as far as possible, (also by term Ex- planations,) to present this whole subject of Medical Electricity in so clear and simple a manner as to be readily understood by any one of ordinary intelli- gence ; hoping it may invite into this hitherto neglected, but intensely inter- esting and profitable study of Electricity, as it relates to human life and health, to the cause and cure of disease, all ranks of the medical profession, as well as help to initiate the younger candidates for its labors and its honors, in years to come, to a still more rational view of diseases and their remedies; — to all of whom, or whosoever reads, it may prove an exposition of this subject at once elementary, practical, and substantial.