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

41. That I believe to produce certain grades of epidemics, certain stages of galvanic disturbance must be in operation. But it is seldom that such rates of derangement traverse the atmosphere or globe; consequently, we have not cholera or intermittents in all places, or at all times ; although electricity, at rest or in motion, may be variable or disturbed, to a certain extent, in every situation. As we reach definite degrees of heat, to boil water, or to freeze it, we must contend with a definite degree of disturbance in galvanic force, fit to inflict epidemic catarrh, and a different definite point, sufficient to occasion epidemic cholera. 42. That I consider to cause specific diseases, similar in all respects, and parallel in progress, some specific agent must be in operation ; such agent must be capable of producing peculiar symptoms, or signs of derangement, by exerting peculiar proportions, or quantities of disturbing actions. 43. That the latent galvanic equivalents in living things are seldom so much deranged as to damage the laws of life ; mild degrees in the scale of disturb- ance inflict only mild corresponding ailments. Were we to assume, by way of illustration, a symbol of figurative quantity, as the neutral, latent, or natural equivalent of atomic electricity in a man, and state the standard amount [say] at ten thousand, or any other number of equivalents, then we might infer, that if ten degrees be added, abstracted, or disturbed, some local epidemic would result to persons similarly struck in that situation at the same time. As the cause (only ten degrees) is not considerable in this supposed case, so the effects will be mild in proportion. Periodical and nocturnal returns of old pains, neryous complaints, neuralgia, or nightly rheumatism, would probably be the symptoms of disorders corresponding to such points of definite or atomic galvanic alteration. 44. That when the east wind (almost always passively electrified) pre- vails ; when stagnant rivers, ponds, sewers, cesspools, filthy streets, and drains, fens, or marshes, fed by changes of decomposing matters, create galvanic troughs of great extent and active energy; when their intense emanations flow in currents, and are linked to people by electric chains of vapor, damp air, wet floors, or filthy garments, — then, as the disturbing forces are severe, the loss of electric balance is severe also. Should the derangement of the balance amount to forty, fifty, or sixty degrees, out of the normal quantity, these points will correspond with the ratio of broken balance which may stand in relation to catarrh, epidemic influenza, diarrhoea, dysentery, fevers, and other local epi- demics, similar in character under similar circumstances. 45. That, when millions on millions of horse power of galvanic forces are hourly evolved in the sultry morasses and festering deltas of the hot east; when strata after strata of our globe are daily galvanized, by communication or induction ; when miles of excited earth transfer conduction to adjoining miles; when electric wave follows wave, flowing round in a zone of resist- less disturbance j when a belt of such stupendous streams of untoward gal- vanism encircles the earth itself, which is the great source and reservoir of