Chap, xv.] MEDICAL ELECTRICITY. 149 



and custom the employment of the constant current is 

 spoken of as GALVANISM, and that of the induced cur- 

 rent as FARADISATION, after Faradav, the discoverer of 



\j * 



induction. Thus when a writer speaks of galvanising 

 a patient, a muscle, or part of the body, he means that 

 he applied the constant current ; when he speaks of 

 faradising, the induced current is indicated. 



What we have hitherto called ELECTRODES are 

 often called RHEOPHORES (pe'os= a stream, and <t>ep<a= I 

 carry; Lat. fero), that is, current carrier*. The term 

 is specially applied, not to the wires connected with 

 the batterv or coil, but to the termination of the wire 



K 



specially adapted for applying the electricity to various 

 parts. 



Batteries and coils. Before indicating the 

 sort of apparatus used in therapeutics, it may be 

 well to mention that static electricity has often 

 been medicinally employed. It might be applied by 

 placing the patient on an insulated stool, and giving 

 him in his hand a connection with the prime con- 

 ductor of a frictional machine (page 10), or with the 

 cushions, and so electrifying him positively or nega- 

 tively. 



Sparks could then be drawn from any part of the pa- 

 tient's body that one wished to stimulate, by approach- 

 ing a conductor to it, the knuckle of the operator's 

 hand, for example. Again, a single shock could be 

 given from the frictional machine or from a Leyden 

 jar (page 11). This method is not now in use, though 

 records seem to show it to be of value. 



For the applications of current electricity, it is 

 obvious that two kinds of apparatus are necessary, 

 one to supply the constant current, consisting of a 

 battery of cells of one kind or another, and of conducting 

 wires, and another consisting of one or more cells 

 connected with an induction coil, and arrangements 

 of wires for employing the induced currents. 



