226 Nolices respecting New Books. 
The work before us deserves much attention from medical. 
men. Asa specimen of the author’s style, and the way in’ which 
he applies the result of his inquiries to useful purposes, we select 
the following from the concluding part of his work: He says: 
‘* T cannot help regarding it as almost ascertained, that in those 
diseases in which the derangement is in the nervous power alone, 
where the sensorial functions are entire, and the vessels healthy, 
and merely the power of secretion, which seems immediately to 
depend on the nervous system, is in fault, galvanism will often 
prove a valuable means of relief.”’ 
*° Of Asthma and Dyspepsia. 
** The following observations relate chiefly to affections of the 
lungs. Of the effects of galvanism in dyspepsia, the principal 
experience which I have yet had, has been in cases where it was 
complicated with asthmatic breathing. 
<¢ When the effect of depriving the lungs of a considerable 
part of their nervous influence is carefully attended to, it will be 
found, I think, in all respects similar to a common disease, which 
may be called habitual asthma; in which the breathing is con- 
stantly oppressed, better and worse at different times, but never 
free, and often continues to get worse in defiance of every means 
we can employ, till the patient is permanently unfitted for all 
the active duties of life. The animal, in the above experiment, 
is not affected with the croaking noise and violent agitation 
which generally characterize fits of spasmodic asthma. This 
state we cannot induce artificially, except by means which lessen 
the aperture of the glottis. 
“ We have seen from repeated trials, that both the ‘oppressed 
breathing and the collection of phlegm, caused by the division 
of the eighth pair of nerves, may be prevented by sending a 
stream of galvanism through the lungs*. That this may be 
done with safety in the human body we know from numberless 
instances, in which galvanism has been applied to it in every 
possible way. 
** Such are the circumstances which led me to expect relief 
from galyanism in habitual asthma. It is because that expecta- 
tion has not been disappointed, that I trouble the reader with 
the following account of its effects. Although the effects of gal- 
yanism in habitual asthma have been witnessed by many other 
medical men, I have mentioned nothing in the following pages 
which did not come under my own observation. 
‘* 1 have employed galvanism in many cases of habitual asthma, 
and almost uniformly with relief. The time, during which the 
Zalvanism was applied before the patient said that his breathing 
* Exp. 46, 47, 48, 49. 
was 
