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

everywhere discover molecular influence becoming very manifest; the passage of the artificial electric current, by increasing the polarity of the atoms, exalts their velocity of rotation, and this again increases their individual electric polarity. The idea thus put forth by M. De la Rive, and Dr. A. Smee, that atoms have an electric polarity, which they owe to a more or less rapid motion by rotation, leads lis to think that if this facility for actual increase of rotation is truly augmented also by moderate heat, and at the same time it exalts their electric polarity, we may, in some measure, and I think in a very satisfactory manner, account for what takes place in living bodies, as electro-calorific phe- nomena, since this applies mostly to moist tissues or fluids. Static Electricity. It is true that natural electricity is at rest, because it is neu- tral ; but this is not what is meant by static electricity, although it also refers to an electricity at rest. But where the natural electricity of bodies has been decomposed, as by friction, heat, or decomposition, then there is a separation of the positive and negative, the one occupying a given locality, and the other another, in a state of accumulation and rest, as on insulated and non-conducting bodies. This state is also called electric tension. Hence, when the electricity that is produced by the friction elec- trical machine is spoken of, in connection with medical practice, we always designate it as static electricity. This form of elec- tricity, above all other forms, exercises the most remarkably attractive and repulsive powers, even at a distance. But the energy of these properties are in proportion to the tension and distance. The neutralization of these two electricities is usually instantaneous and by a spark or shock. The neutralization can take place slowly and imperceptibly, as through imperfect con- ductors. The quantity of frictional or static electricity is always relatively small, but it possesses the highest degree of tension. For this reason it is easy to draw very brilliant sparks from the electrical machine, while large and powerful series of galvanic batteries, which furnish an enormous quantity of electricity, (but