Soothing Our Soldiers Electrically 



Electric cages will put new energy in them when worn out. 

 Trench-foot and shell shock also to be aided electrically 



By Lloyd E. Darling 



OF course, you wonder what the pic- 

 ture on our cover means. You see 

 a medical officer operating elec- 

 trical apparatus, and also a marine inside 

 of a cage. What's the marine in for? 



So we introduce to you a little known 

 development in the field of science. 



Government officials recently decided 

 to establish in all American war hos- 

 pitals in this country and Europe, elec- 

 trical apparatus for the treatment of 

 wounded and ailing army and navy men. 

 And the peculiar part about it is that the 

 apparatus to be used is not unlike that 

 which every young experimenter in this 

 country has played with for a long time 

 past. The coils and condensers of the 

 boy's wireless apparatus are familiar ob- 

 jects; also the glass-plate static machine 

 that he inherited from some Hghtning rod 

 demonstrator, or that he made himself. 

 That such machines as these, though 

 naturally of larger size and better quality, 

 have a practical usefulness in an army 

 hospital is unexpected. 



Electrical currents of some types are of 

 special benefit in the many ills common to 

 soldiers, and in particular to those that do 

 not yield readily to ordinary treatment. 

 For instance, trench foot. What is 

 trench foot? It is a disease likely to 

 afflict any of our men who have to stand 

 for hours at a time in cold, water-filled 

 trenches and in the slime and ooze that 

 covers battle grounds. At first, a man 

 loses all feeling in his feet. They swell 

 and pain. Gangrene may develop. Then 

 there's rheumatism, sciatica, lumbago, 

 the "trench back," which frequently re- 

 sults when men have been buried alive, 

 frost bite, shell shock, neuritis, wounds 

 from which there is a large discharge of 

 pus; sprains, contusions, skin diseases, 

 hysterical paralysis, tissues broken up by 

 irregular bullet wounds, and so on. Don't 

 get the idea from this array that electric- 

 ity is a cure-all and the long-looked-for 

 panacea. It is only lately that the cura- 

 tive properties of electricity have been 



systematically utilized. It takes a head 

 to be both a doctor and an electrical expert. 

 This is the principal reason why the sys- 

 tem has not been applied before. But as 

 far back as 1907, in the Moroccoan war, 

 the French found electrical methods in- 

 valuable. In this war, they have been 

 developed to a still greater extent. 



Most men have heard a little how elec- 

 tricity may be used to benefit and cure 

 certain ills. They know that doctors — 

 some of them quacks — sometimes use 

 electrical apparatus and that there is al- 

 ways a great to-do around such places, 

 what with the sparks and everything. 

 But just what does it amount to? 



Says Dr. William Benham Snow, an 

 authority on the subject: 



Electricity operates in three principal ways in the 

 curing of disease; mechanically, chemically and 

 thermally. These are the same actions as electric- 

 ity brings about among machines. In other words, 

 the mechanical result produced is an actual move- 

 ment of or in the flesh, due to the direct stimu- 

 lation of the muscular tell, or as a result of the 

 nerve and muscular mechanism acting together. 

 Contraction results. Chemical effects may lye of 

 the electrolysis order, or in the nature of cooking, 

 or may be actual chemical reactions within the cells 

 as a result of the electrical stimulus. Thermal ef- 

 fects may border on those of chemical nature, but es- 

 pecially result in increased blood circulation through 

 an affected part, stimulating greatly growth of 

 bacteria-destroying blood cells, and so on. The 

 especial advantage of the heat produced as a result 

 of electrical apparatus is that it may be made to 

 permeate an affected part in just the right way. 

 The field for electrotherapy has wdened immensely 

 since the war began. 



The man on our cover is surrounded by 

 electricity. He sits in an invisible elec- 

 trical field, produced by what is known as 

 a d'Arsonval apparatus, much like a Tesla 

 coil, except that the current is greater. 

 The man in the Cage is permeated through 

 and through by the electrical field. You 

 know if you take an ordinary electric light 

 current and send it through a small coil of 

 wire in which is an iron core, you can heat 

 the core red hot if the current strength is 

 great enough. Eddy currents are set up 

 in the core. 



