70 STUDIES IN ELECTRO-PHYSIOLOGY: 



resistance, the current will divide at the battery terminal, 

 and if a and b are exactly balanced (no matter what 

 their resistance) no current will pass through the gal- 



Fig, i. 



vanometer. If, however, a was less than b there would be 

 a transfer of part of the current from d to c, and vice 

 versa. 



Taking what should be, but is not, the science of 

 electro-physiology as it is to-day, it is a matter of infinite 

 wonderment to me that physiologists have all failed to 

 recognise, from their own works, that the structure of the 

 body is primarily electrical. If it is so one cannot be 

 surprised, in the absence of such recognition, that the 

 practice of electro-therapeutics is empirical. A necessary 

 preliminary to curative treatment is knowledge of the 

 human neuro-electrical system the generator or genera- 

 tors of nerve-force, the natural conductors and dielectrics, 

 the condensers and storage cells and their capacity, and, 

 what is of paramount importance, the influence of disease 

 upon any or all of them. Until that knowledge is acquired 

 treatment cannot be said to rest upon a scientific basis. 

 I do not, of course, include the surgical uses of electricity 



