Electro-physiology and electro-therapeutics : showing the best methods for the medical uses of electricity / By Alfred C. Garratt.
35/740
- Publication/creation
- Boston : Ticknor and Fields, 1861.
- Physical description
- 3 unnumbered pages, 716 pages, 2 leaves of plates : illustrations ; 26 cm
- Contributors
-
Garratt, Alfred C. (Alfred Charles), 1813?-1891
Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library
- Notes
-
3d ed. has title: Medical electricity
Includes index and testimonials
- Type/technique
- Electronic books
- Subjects
-
Electrophysiology
Electrotherapeutics
- Attribution and usage
-
This material has been provided by the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University.
This work has been identified as being free of known restrictions under copyright law, including all related and neighbouring rights and is being made available under the Creative Commons, Public Domain Mark.
You can copy, modify, distribute and perform the work, even for commercial purposes, without asking permission.
The image contains the following text:
bars of bismuth and antimony of about two inches in length, so
soldered together alternately and folded back and forth upon
itself, as to form a very small compact cube, or block, by means
of insulating wax, or shellac, for filling the vacancies between
the bars, which must touch only at their solderings.
The two extreme ends of this sort of folded chain, the one of
bismuth and the other of antimony, which are
the poles of the pile, connect, by two short bits
of ordinary insulated copper conducting wire,
with the two extremities of a multiplier. The
two studs pass through a piece of ivory, or
glass, fixed upon a metal ring, which receives the thermo-electric
block, and may be furnished with a pivot, or a hinge, by means
of a piece attached, and so allow the axis of the pile to be placed
hanging in any direction. The face of this instrument, that we
now wish to be kept at an ambient temperature, must be covered
with a finely-polished metal shield, which so envelops it as not
to touch it; while care must be taken to blacken the terminal
faces of the pile, which is to be uncovered and turned directly
facing the source of the heat, or cold, that is to be tested. The
nice sensibility of lliis apparatus, small and exceedingly simple as
it is, we learn from M. De la Rive, is such, that if the uncovered
face of this little pile is turned towards a person who stands at a
distance of even twenty-five feet, the deviation of the needle of
the multiplier detects the emanation of the radiant heat of that
person, and shows the evidence to all who behold ! By this
marvellously delicate instrument, MM. Nobili and Melloni were
enabled to discover the presence of heat even in insects—in
phosphorescent bodies, and under many circumstances where it
could not be detected by any other known means.
M. Becqucrel has taught us to make use of thermo-electricity
for the measurement of the temperature of the different tissues
of the human body, by preparing mixed metallic needles of a
diameter of less than a twentieth of an inch, which are used
simply by introducing them as we do acu-puncture needles.
Then, if we compare thoroughly, yet very carefully, all the phe-
nomena in which heat and electricity are concerned together, we