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VIII. Notices respecting ^ew Books. 



Remarks on the History and Philosopky, hit particularly on 

 the medical Efficacy, of Electricity in the Cure of Nervous 

 and Chronic Disorders ; and in various local j^ffections, as 

 Blindness, Deafness, c§c. By M. La Beaume, Medical Sur- 

 geon-Electrician, F.L.S. &:c. I vol. 12mo. pp. 373. 95. 



A HIS is a second edition of a work, which should be perused by 

 medical practitioners, illustrated with many new and striking 

 cases. The following extract presents a perspicuous view of the 

 theory of Electricity advocated by the author. 



" Among the illustrious names who have formed theories on 

 the electric principle — Franklin and Watson, Du Faye and 

 Symner, deserve chiefly to be reckoned. These learned philo- 

 sophers and mathematicians have entertained different opinions 

 in accounting for the electrical phenomena. Some of these 

 maintained the doctrine of the unity of Electricity in distinct 

 states ; and others, not without reasons to support their hypo- 

 thesis, contended for two distinct fluids in the electrical princi- 

 ple. The belief, however, of modern Electricians in 07ie fluid, 

 iui generis, possessing attraction and repulsion, and other qua- 

 lities on which the system is chiefly founded, may be comprised 

 in the following summary. 



" 1st. — That aZZ substances in nature, whether solids or fluids, 

 animate or inanimate, have inherent in them a certain portion of 

 the electric principle, and which in their proper state is the quan- 

 tum sufficit of their natural capacity — the just proportion of this 

 elementary matter exactly preserving the balance — so that its 

 mutual attraction and repulsion should maintain the equilibrium 

 of their being — preserve their characteristic differences, and pre- 

 vent disorganization and decay. 



*'2nd. — A redundancy of this elementary principle compressed 

 into a limited capacity, either by a chemical or mechanical agency, 

 constitutes that state which is denominated positive or plus Elec- 

 tricity, while a deficiency of this ethereal principle is designated 

 negative or minus Electricity . These opposite conditions, each 

 of which is disorder, exist as an accidental effect of some pro- 

 ducing cause or causes, and exhibit the different appearances 

 which result from the action of the electric fluid. 



*' 3rd. — The efforts of the electrical principle to maintain its 

 natural state in all bodies, not only appear to prove the correct- 

 ness of this theory, but show that its positive and negative, or 

 attracting and repelling powers are only the directions which it 

 takes to restore tiie balance of its disturbed repose. Thus a body 

 posiliuely clectrijied, imparts its superabundant Electricity to one 



tiegalivelt/ 



