482 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



There can be no question of the curative powers of electricity, 

 since there is now extant a scientific literature, by the most eminent 

 physiologists and thaumaturgists, affirming these powers ; but, as we 

 have said, electricity has been clumsy in its apparatus, and unpleasant 

 in its action. These difficulties Mr. Pulvermacher has effectually over- 

 come, to the satisfaction not only of most of the scientific men on the 

 Continent, but also of such men as Sir C. Locock, Sir H. Holland, Sir 

 William Ferguson, Sir J. R. Martin, Dr. Sieveking, Dr. Quain, Dr. 

 Andrew Clarke, Dr. Golding Bird, Dr. Thompson, and a host of other 

 English celebrities. 



The great advantage of electrical action is, that it brings relief in 

 a large number of diseases confessedly beyond the reach of the ordi- 

 nary remedies of the physician. How powerless, for instance, is ordi- 

 nary medical skill in tic-douloureux ! Tic, tic, tic ; it is a recurring 

 gentle monosyllable, suggestive of something peculiarly quiet and 

 peaceful; but, madam, that tic shoots through your head like a shot 

 from a nine-pounder, the only difference being that after the "tic" 

 you have your head ready for another, while after the shot you w T ould 

 have no head worth mentioning. Or, see the tears rolling down the 

 cheeks of that pretty girl, whose ideas of love and romance and sen- 

 timent are scared away by the wearing pain of neuralgia ; or, racking 

 with the pain of gout and rheumatism, the man of middle age passes 

 his restless nights, gaining temporary respite from pain by colchicum, 

 or a fitful repose from morphine, and buying present ease at the cost 

 of an unhappy and painful old age. Why, madam, do you endure 

 this tic? Why, dear young lady, do you pine under neuralgia? 

 Why, old man, do you writhe in gouty or rheumatic agony, when help 

 is so near? It is the vis inertice, the unbelief in the face of facts, the 

 idiotic negligence of remedies which appear simple. If they had been 

 bid to do some great thing, would they not have done it ? But these 

 little chains, that can be worn like a piece of ribbon, what are they in 

 the face of tic, and neuralgia, and rheumatism ? These chain-batter- 

 ies, that look like pieces of jewelry, what can they do to strengthen 

 the trembling hand, or revive the withering limb ? 



We will tell you what they are, and what we have seen them do. 

 We have seen this little band, which you seem to think so little of 

 you, the sufferer from acute pain we have seen it with only four or 

 five elements that is, about a foot long dry and unexcited, placed 

 for one second to the upper plate of an electroscope, and it has pro- 

 duced the phenomena of attraction and repulsion on the gold-leaf. 

 We have seen a band half an inch wide prove the power of the elec- 

 tric current, by passing through two persons and decomposing water 

 in a test-tube. We have seen the little glittering chain-battery, which 

 could be carried in the waistcoat-pocket, produce a continuous current 

 that diffused a perfect glow of warmth through the system ; and with 

 a little instrument, called a " contact-breaker," appended to the same 



