110 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 



GALVANIC SURGERY. 



ONE of those extraordinary applications of science to the benefit of 

 mankind, with which, in this age of progress, we are becoming so 

 familiar, has recently been made in the substitution of the galvanic 

 battery for the knife of the operating surgeon. It has been long 

 knoAvn that if a galvanic current of great power is conducted through 

 a very small wire, the latter becomes heated to whiteness, and if 

 formed of any of the ordinary metals, is rapidly destroyed ; but if 

 made of platinum, remains unaltered ; and that a galvanic battery may 

 be so arranged, that the current can at any moment be transmitted 

 along such a wire, or as suddenly arrested. It sometimes unfortu- 

 nately happens that in various parts of the body deep-seated abscesses 

 occur, having several openings, and these are unable to be healed until 

 laid open, and it may so occur that a vast collection of veins in such a 

 part renders the use of the knife excessively dangerous. In the olden 

 time, a surgeon would have employed a red-hot knife ; but such a practice 

 has been in modern times entirely relinquished, as cruel and barbar- 

 ous, the vast amount of heat given out destroying the adjacent parts ; 

 if, however, a very fine wire is first placed in the required position, and 

 then connected with the galvanic battery, it instantly becomes heated 

 to whiteness, and may be readily caused to cut in the proper direc- 

 tion, almost without causing any pain, as the parts in immediate con- 

 tact with the heated wire are instantly deprived of life and sensation ; 

 and, from its small size, the heated body is unable to throw off enough 

 heat to injure adjacent parts ; and, furthermore, a cut by the heated 

 wire possesses a great advantage over one made by a knife, inasmuch 

 as it is not attended with any loss of blood. Of course this mode of 

 operating is not calculated to supersede the use of the surgeon's knife, 

 except in certain cases ; but in all probability it may become a very 

 valuable auxiliary in the practice of surgery. The mere idea of a 

 red or white hot substance in immediate contact with the human body, 

 is, at first, exceedingly painful ; but when we recall to our readers' recol- 

 lection the experiments of M. Boutigny and others, with red-hot 

 bodies,* they will at once perceive that the contact of a body heated to 

 whiteness is not necessarily, if applied under proper circumstances, 

 attended with pain. Another new application of this novel remedial 

 agent is to effect the destruction of the nerves in decayed teeth ; and 

 in some cases it is said to have been used with great success for this 

 purpose. 



ATMOSPHERIC MAGNETISM. 



THE following is an abstract of a lecture on atmospheric magnetism, 

 read by Prof. Faraday, before the Royal Institute, April, 1851. It 

 contains results supplemental to those announced in the Bakerian Lec- 

 ture, of Nov. 28th, 1850, on the magnetism of oxygen and other gases. f 



* See Annual of Scientific Discovery, 1850, and 1851. 

 t See Annual of Scientific Discovery, 1851, pp. 133-4. 



