CHAPTER IV 



REVIEW OF ELECTRO-PHYSIOLOGICAL 

 RESEARCH 



PUT briefly, the history of electro-physiological research is 

 one of contradiction, confusion, and uncertainty. To this 

 day the medical profession regard with a not unmerited 

 degree of suspicion the results and theories of those very 

 able men who have for the last hundred and thirty 

 years or so laboured in this field of scientific investigation. 

 Had it not been for their failure to discover certain facts 

 of primary importance, facts which would have made all 

 things clear to them, electro-physiology would long ago 

 have enlightened and led the world of medicine. 



Later on I will give those facts the prominence they 

 deserve, but before doing so it may be useful to offer a 

 short recapitulation of what has been done. 



From A Practical Treatise on the Medical and Surgical 

 Uses of Electricity, by G. M. Beard, M.D., and A. D. Rock- 

 well, M.D., I quote the following : 



" Those who aspire to mastership in electro-thera- 

 peutics will not be content with the mere attempt to relieve 

 symptoms ; they will seek to study those most complex 

 and subtle diseases for the treatment of which electricity is 

 indicated ; they will resort to this force for diagnostic as well 

 as therapeutic aid ; they will strive to know not only 

 how to use it, but, what is more difficult, how not to use it. 

 He only can reap the full and rich harvest of electro- 

 therapeutical science and art who sows beside all waters ; 



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