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

which the red-hot irons are taken out of a smoking brazier, and the horror they create in the patient's mind. The galvano-caus- tic, on the other hand, requires no fire, no smoke, &c. The essential part of this apparatus, not unlike a glazier's diamond, or ordinary port-caustic-case with two wires run through it, may be carried in a pocket-case. When in action it applies a little coil of platinum (twisted around a bead of glass or porcelain, about the size of a small pea, and of a white heat*) to any part, or for any length of time that may be necessary. In the present case the effect was almost like magic. The incandescent little '•pea of fire] produced within the speculum vagina by the operator in an instant, quite lighted up all to be seen, and plainly showed the amount or extent of disease, almost as in a diagram. " The plan of operation, to which we would revert for a mo- ment, was very simple. An ordinary galvanic battery, of some half-dozen plates, was placed on a chair at the side of the bed; the two wires (conductors), the one attached, the other in the operator's hand, were next arranged. The second conductor wire only required to be pushed into a hole at the opposite end of the battery, by the left hand, and the operator could have instantly produced in his right hand this little ball of fire, at a white heat. " The woman was next placed on her hands and knees in bed, without any exposure. The speculum was introduced, when the vent or fistulous opening was at once seen to be about a half an inch in extent. The circuit of the battery being now completed, the coil of fine platinum over the bead shone at once with almost too much light, reflected as it was from the glass mirror and silver of the speculum. Dr. Paget then carefully pencilled the edges of the fistula with this new, and we think improved, actual cautery, just as if it were a pointed piece of nitrate of silver. The woman, strange to say, did not feel the least pain — a peculiarity, it is said, of the \white' heat, as contradistin- guished from that of a lower or red heat. She did not require ether, and after the operation she seemed as if nothing had been done to her. We mention these particulars, because such an improvement as the galvano-caustic, over the old red irons, can-