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

" In cases of collapse, I- would fix one disk on the spine, the other on the abdomen, as above stated; and, in addition, I would send the strong continuous current from a galvanic bat- tery first along down the spine, and then from the spine along the cramped or contracted parts, also through the liver, stomach, and bowels; a few shocks to be used only where it was neces*- sary, and but momentarily, to stir up the whole system — in fact, simply to keep up life." The key to understand the relative bearing of the foregoing treatments is found in those words where Dr. Meinig says, " The skin was blistered in fifteen min- utes by the power of the current employed;" that is, he em- ployed a very powerful primary current in these extreme cases, and produced such uniform good results. From the theory of cholera as published by Sir James Mur- ray, in the London Medical and Surgical Journal, in 1832, and since amply confirmed in many parts of the world, it is to be concluded that the judicious use of electro-magnetic or galvanic passes, patiently persevered in, through the respiratory and spinal nerves is one of the most essential adjuvants that can be em- ployed during; collapse, or that state of passive electric abstraction which ought to be treated much like suspended animation. An article by Dr. J. C. Atkinson, in the Lancet of 1848, p. 504, says, " I am desirous at the present moment of calling the attention of scientific readers to a very interesting phenom- enon, more or less present in the collapse stage of cholera, which seems to have hitherto escaped the observation of medical men, viz., animal electricity, or phosphorescence of the human body. My attention was first attracted to the subject during the former visitation of that fearful disease in the metropolis. It was indeed singular to notice the visible quantity of electric fluid which continually discharged itself on the approach of any conducting body to the surface of the skin of a patient laboring under the collapse stage, more particularly if the patient had been previously enveloped in blankets. Streams of electricity, many of them averaging one inch and a half in length, could be readily cducted by the knuckle of the hand, when directed to any part of the body; and these appeared, in color, effect,