502 THE INTELLECTUAL RISE IN ELECTRICITY. 



made so by rubbing; but only by the approach of the elec- 

 tric glass;" but consider, he urges, the immense value of 

 such a discovery as that electricity will prevent wasting or 

 decay of the human frame "what reward would be too 

 great for the discoverer ?' ' 



Not only, he says, does electricity make blisters on the 

 skin, but it is apparently propagated through the entire 

 body. Clearly, therefore, by means of electricity, changes 

 can be caused in the most hidden parts of the frame. L,ost 

 health may perhaps be thus restored, or present health 

 maintained, if the application be made at the proper time 

 and in the proper way. Hence does it not follow that 

 electrification is a new curative agent ? 



He conjectured that electrification of the body would 

 augment the circulation of the blood, and cause contrac- 

 tions of the solid parts, and regretted that so little was 

 known on the subject that no one could exactly predict 

 what internal bodily changes would occur a statement 

 which can still be made with little qualification. 



In the spring of 1744, Christian Gottlieb Kratzenstein, 1 

 of Halle, made the first experiments on the living body to 

 determine the effects of electricity. He observed at once 

 a marked increase in the pulse-beats, and the accelerated 

 circulation predicted by Kriiger, and also the contractile 

 and irritating effect of the discharge upon the muscles. 

 Sparks leaping from the blood running from the opened 

 vein of an electrified man to a tin dish placed to receive 

 the flow, added to the general conviction that electricity 

 was a material substance in the body. Kratzenstein began 

 to administer the discharge as a specific for all congestive 

 ailments rheumatism, malignant fevers and the plague 

 and claimed to have made remarkable cures of lameness 

 and palsy, one woman with a lame or stiff finger being 

 relieved in fifteen minutes. L,ange, 2 who followed in 



1 Kratzenstein : Abhandlung von dem Nutzen der Elek. in der Arznei- 

 \vissenschaft. (Gralath, cit. sup., 296.) 



2 Lange: Wocheuliche Hallische Anzeigen, xxiv., An., 1744. 



