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

tvphus seldom, if ever, rage in the same locality simultaneously, although the fever track and the cholera track are identical." 28. That by no hypothesis, deduced from the theory of miasms, can we account for the known fact, that in the Campagna di Roma, in Tuscany, Cey- lon, and other places, localities are pointed out where malarious influence is insulated, and limited to defined spaces — as to one side of a hill, one range of a street, one end of a field, or even to one particular habitation. Malaria, tossed about in the air of Rome, will not account for one portion of the Via Babuina being infected, and not the other; nor will it explain why the dry and clean Pincian Hill, and the beautiful Monte Mario, are unhealthy, while the marshy streets and courts below are salutary; why the rich and well-planted grounds of the Villa Borghese are insalubrious, while the flooded Piazza Na- vonna, the Velabra, and the Jewish quarter are safe, like other crowded towns of equal temperature, on similar sanitary regulations. 29. That it is well known there are, even in these climates, numerous small spots of land, circumscribed by a distinct boundary, which have been noxious for ages. If this diseased state be owing to a want of equilibrium of galvan- ism in the earth or soil of such places, it merits a series of rigid trials, to examine their condition to the utmost extent, and to divert or cut off the sources of unequal galvanic influence, where unduly exerted. It is also known that, in various situations, physicians cannot readily cure or relieve certain nervous or rheumatic complaints, owing to causes which are undoubtedly elec- trical. This renders the removal from such localities absolutely necessary to sensitive patients, a change of air to whom, is simply a change of habitual electricity. 30. That the condition of low, decomposing, or fermenting places themselves might, in many instances, be improved by the means hereafter recommended ; but to carry out in detail experiments and plans on a sufficient scale, should be the work of governments or municipalities, not of an individual. To arrive at conclusions of absolute certainty, experiments require to be instituted on an enlarged system. It is, however, fortunate that the chief means here pointed out will well repay their cost and trouble, by the diminution even of the former imputed causes of " malaria." There is, therefore, the less necessity to dis- pute about the existence or non-existence of marsh miasms, if we can prevent or abate the desolation attributed to their influence in cities, towns, and marshy districts. 31. That whilst the nature, and even the very existence, of marsh miasm as a poison, sui generis, are without proof, demonstration, or reasonable explana- tion, the connection of electricity with all the agencies of nature is unbounded and undeniable. Its power is equal to the production of every effect here suggested. It is able to separate and again unite the elements of water, to tear metals from their oxides, to shake the clouds in thunder, and to operate in developing the evolutions of crystals. In its form of currents, it contorts the muscles of lifeless animals, and it flies, in its condensed form, instanta-