INTRODUCTORY REMARKS. 



IN the following pages, the author of this little treatise 

 proposes to lay before the reader the present state of our know- 

 ledge respecting Electricity as a remedial agent. From various 

 causes, Electricity, as a medical agent, has not yet had a full 

 and fair trial, such as to enable the practitioner at once to 

 predict whether in any proposed case it will be a sanative or 

 inert application. In the early history of Electrical Science, it 

 was anticipated, that, from its powerful influence on the human 

 frame, it would prove a valuable auxiliary in the healing art ; 

 nor were there wanting those who were sanguine enough to 

 regard it as an universal medicine, which might be resorted to 

 in every form of disease. Philosophers had before them an 

 agent of subtlety almost unexampled, which traversed the ani- 

 mal frame with unmeasured and irresistible activity which 

 affected the neivous and muscular system in a manner which it 

 was beyond the power of volition to controul ; and it was nei- 

 ther absurd nor unreasonable to suppose that such an agent 

 might, under some modification, produce a salutary effect upon 

 the diseases to which mortality is heir. But unfortunately, the 

 progress of the science was arrested by the extravagant asser- 

 tions promulgated relative to its success. Charlatans of every 

 degree found the electrical machine a lucrative article of trade ; 

 and there were not wanting well-meaning enthusiasts, who con- 

 tributed to prolong the reign of Medical Electricity. The more 

 sober part of the medical profession on the other hand, finding 

 the utter fallacy of many of these assertions ascertaining that 

 many of the experiments which had been published were 



