IS ELECTRICITY LIFE? 481 



as if it were of little or no use ; sometimes by arguments, such as they 

 were ; and sometimes by such cautions against its ill-effects as made 

 thousands afraid to meddle with it." And he thus sums up his opin- 

 ion of the medical profession, and their opposition to the use of elec- 

 tricity in disease : " There cannot be in Nature any such thing as an 

 absolute panacea, a medicine that will cure every disease incident to 

 the human body. If there could, electricity would bid fairer for it 

 than any thing in the world. Mr. Lovett is of opinion that the elec- 

 trical method of treating disorders cannot be expected to arrive at 

 any considerable degree of perfection till administered and applied by 

 the gentlemen of the faculty. Nay, then, quantd de spe decidi! all 

 my hopes are at an end. For when will it be administered and ap- 

 plied by them ? Truly ad Graicas calendas. Not till the gentlemen 

 of the faculty have more regard to the interest of their neighbors than 

 their own. Therefore, without waiting for what probably never will 

 be, and what indeed we have no reason to expect, let men of sense do 

 the best they can for themselves, as well as for their poor sick helpless 

 neighbors. I doubt not but more nervous disorders would be cured 

 in one year by this single remedy, than the whole English materia' 

 medica will cure by the end of the century." 



This is hard upon the doctors, yet it only fairly expresses their' 

 conduct at that period. They alone, however, are not to be held re- 

 sponsible for the delay in adopting the curative powers of electricity.. 

 Every thing worth having has to force its way to acceptance. A pop- 

 ular writer has well said : " If London could be lit, like the city in the 

 fairy tale, with a single diamond, which rendered it brighter at mid- 

 night than at mid-day, it would take ten years to smoothe away preju- 

 dices and conciliate self-interests, so as to admit of the illuminating 

 gem being displayed." All the astonishing cures in the early period 

 of electricity were effected by clumsy and importable machinery, with 

 " shocks " of high-tension current, which are peculiarly disagreeable 

 to some persons. They are indeed like the actual cautery the hot 

 iron to the wound when compared with the modern appliances of 

 chain batteries and bands, whose action is so tender that a baby would! 

 not wince at it, and which are so portable that the whole apparatus^ 

 may be carried in the pocket. It has fallen to the man of science, and. 

 not to the medical practitioner, to enforce a belief in the curative 

 powers of electricity upon the public. 



About the centre of the fashionable side of Regent Street may be 

 seen the establishment of Mr. Pulvermacher. How many suffering 

 from disease which has baffled the skill of physicians, how many whose 

 nervous feelings render life a burden to them, how many afflicted with 

 tic-douloureux or neuralgia, limping with gout or rheumatism, shiver- 

 ing with palsy, or bent with paralysis, pass that establishment, igno- 

 rant that therein most probably lies the mitigation of their suffering, 

 if not their absolute cure ! 



YOL. II. 31 



