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

of them; and that this vibration, which must necessarily affect the nerves of the tongue, produces the taste described." It was received as a curiosity. The first systematic work upon medical electricity, including the employment of galvanism, was from the pen of a German physician — Dr. Grapcngiesser, of Berlin, in 1801. It appears that his work was not the mere production of theory, but was " the result of his practice," and more particularly of the consider- able success he obtained. He advises the employment of the voltaic current of electricity in amaurosis, and in cases where there is a premature decline of vision from want of nerve power — for tumor albus, for rheumatisms, for sciatica, and for palsies. In these latter affections, it was his practice to place the positive pole over the trunk of the nerve that supplies the affected mus- cles, while the negative pole is placed lower down on those affected muscles; thus he employed mostly the continuous vol- taic current with rare changes or interruptions. He also speaks of using it successfully in deafness, and in hemiplegia, after the cessation of the pressure in the brain, and in all other paralytic affections and conditions. lie seems to have resorted to a species of reflex action ; for he speaks of using wooden basins filled with water, into which the electrodes, together with both the feet, or the two hands, of the patient are plunged. Of course, one limb receives the negative current as up-running, while the other limb is receiving the current down-running towards the positive pole to forrn the circuit; and these he alternated according to the case. His general method, in nearly all other cases, seems to have consisted in drawing two blisters, and applying and retaining a single pair of silver and zinc plates immediate!)/ vpon these raw surfaces, the cuticle being first removed. This, indeed, had been recommended, by Alexander von Humboldt and others in those times, as the most direct and effective method of using galva- nism ; and certainly it was a " localized method " with a severity, for we also see mention of " several hundreds of pairs of plates" in the pile employed, and also of " a hundred blows given at a seance," by the opening and closing of the circuit, through these raw surfaces.