THE PHYSICIANS AS DISCOVERERS. 257 



If it had been known that the reduction of the elec^ 

 trical and magnetic knowledge of the time to a science, 

 coupled moreover with new discoveries of extreme im- 

 portance and brilliancy, was predestined to come from a 

 medical faculty, common consent, as well as the evidence 

 to be derived from all written records, would infallibly 

 have pointed to that existing in Italy; perhaps in Milan 

 or Padua or Bologna. But no one could have foreseen 

 that so startling an event could have originated in Eng- 

 land, could have been the unaided work of an English doc- 

 tor; and, perhaps least of all, of the particular physician 

 who, at the time of its appearance, presided over the des- 

 tinies and troubles of the much-vexed and hard-fighting 

 college in London. 



The rise in electricity had slowly taken place throughout 

 all Europe, indeed, all the world, and therein many na- 

 tionalities had taken part. It was now destined to move 

 with a new and marvelous vigor, through the transcend- 

 ent genius of an Englishman and on English soil. 



