10 HISTORY OF 



manent injury from it." Winkler stated that the first time he 

 underwent the experiment, " he suffered great convulsions 

 through his body ; that it put his blood into agitation ; that he 

 feared an ardent fever, and was obliged to have recourse to 

 cooling medicines." 



Nollet was the first who directly applied Electricity for the 

 relief of disease. He had observed that its continued action on 

 liquids accelerated their evaporation ; and that this evaporation 

 was far more considerable when the vessels which contained 

 them had a larger opening, and were formed of good electrical 

 conductors. Boze at the same time observed that electrified 

 water issued from capillary tubes in the form of rays, in lieu of 

 by drops. These two experiments were regarded as fundamen- 

 tal ones by those physicians who directed their attention to the 

 application of Electricity as a medical agent. 



In the year 1747, Johannes Pivati published at Venice the 

 first of a series of errors and deceptions (whether intentional or 

 not) which required much labour, and numerous elaborate ex- 

 periments, entirely to disprove. He enclosed a quantity of 

 Balsam of Peru in a glass cylinder, so that before its excitation 

 no smell could be emitted. With this cylinder he electrified a 

 man having a pain in his side. The patient returned home, 

 fell asleep, and perspired ; so effectually, we are told, had the 

 virtue of the Balsam been thus conveyed to the patient, that 

 his clothes and his hair were impregnated with the balsamic 

 effluvium. In another experiment, a similar effect was produced 

 upon a person in health, who was not made acquainted with 

 Pivati's intention, and in whom the odoriferous emanation be- 

 came perceptible to himself and' others half an hour afterwards. 

 Pivati next began to apply these powers to medical purposes : 

 lie professed to have cured, or rather discussed, an abscess in 

 the foot of a young gentleman by electrifying him with a glass 

 cylinder filled with certain drugs. His next patient was Signer 

 Donadoni, Bishop of Sebenico, seventy-five years old, and 

 greatly afflicted with the gout. The joints of his fingers had 

 become fixed, and he had lost the power of bending his knees. 

 Pivati tells us, that he proceeded to the cure by filling a glass 



