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

tions instantly and exactly as before, with the exception that they were more feeble even than in the second series of experi- ments, which was done by one metal. So conclusive was this final result, when the experiment was carefully done, that there was not a word left for reply by any convincible man ; yet we find that Volta as persistently denied that final and grand re- sult. By his great learning and masterly skill, he convinced or silenced the learned men of the world mostly, so that the pre- vailing public opinion settled down upon Volta's views, until he and his generation had mostly passed away. Among those many who took a deep interest in this all- absorbing discussion of those times was Alexander von Hum- boldt ; and before that century was closed, he had bestowed so much time and labor on these and other similar experiments, that he put forth unanswerable explanations that showed that those philosophers, Galvani and Volta, ivere both right in the main, but were in some respects wrong, and that here lay the cause of their difference. Baron Humboldt's conclusions were concurred in by Hufeland, Pfaff, and other distinguished German philoso- phers and physicians, who strongly urged the propriety and im- portance of searching for the best modes of employing electricity as a rational therapeutic agent, although they did not claim to have employed it themselves, except in their various experiments. These researches of Baron Humboldt were published in 1797, which in themselves show how ardently and thoroughly he went into this work, not failing to subject his own precious body to the corrosive action of metals which were applied immediately to purposely denuded and raw surfaces, as if to signify the greatness and sacredness of the subject he was determined to solve. He then explained and maintained the original views of Galvani, and gave him all praise for the patience and indomita- ble perseverance that so conclusively demonstrated the law of nature, viz., animal electricity; and at the same time offer- ing such reasonable explanations, and yielding such praise for the discovery of the voltaic pile, that should have entirely rec- onciled those two Italian philosophers and their respective par- tisans. In 1799 Humboldt set out for his American travels, and