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

crackling noise, and luminous character, similar to that which we are all accustomed to observe when touching a charged Leyden jar. I may remark the coincidence that, simultaneously with the heat of the body passing off, the electricity was evolved : and I am therefore led to ask the question, Are not heat, elec- tric and galvanic fluids, one and the same thing ? Does not the fact of the passing off of both imponderable substances at one and the same time strengthen this conclusion ? " Again, are not the whole of what we call vital phenom- ena produced by certain modifications of the electro-galvanio- magnetic matter and motions ? And do we not find that these vital phenomena are continuously affected by the relative state of the surrounding electric medium ? To what can we attribute the present fluctuating condition of the barometer, if not to it ?" We know what wonderful decomposing action galvanism had on alkalies, under the hands of the illustrious Humphry Davy ; but we do not know, nor have we any conception, in the present state of knowledge, of the decomposing action of the electric matter of the atmospheric air, in its various conditions, on the fluids generally of the animal body. Chemistry has failed in pointing out any other, or ponderable material as the exciting cause of epidemic diseases. In the treatment of cholera, all are agreed that non-conduct ing substances on the surface of the skin aid essentially in the cure; and during the disturbed state of the atmosphere, for the purpose of retaining the electricity continually eliminating in the system, we are told to wear woollen bandages, flannel, and gutta percha soles, so as to insulate as much as possible the body, to prevent the heat and the electric fluid from pass- ing off. (See Appendix F, G Note 3.) Breast-Milk. The lacteal secretion is a veritable nervo-chemical phenom- enon ; yet the good effects of electricity on the mammary gland, in case there is very deficient secretion, suppressed or poor secretion of milk, and in other abnormal states of the milk- giving breast, (except the inflammatory,) show it to be not so