14 HISTORY OF 



strong shocks or mere sparks, and that the duration of this 

 effect is such, that it would seem to authorize the hope of 

 discovering in this remedy an efficacious excitant, likely to 

 prove of no slight advantage in the treatment of diseases." 



Grapen Gresser, a colleague of the celebrated Humboldt, 

 published a work on the employment of Galvanism in the 

 treatment of certain maladies ; he asserted that Galvanism 

 could not only prove of service for the distinguishing of nerves 

 from other organs, and particularly from vessels, but even for 

 the indication of the distribution of superficial nerves. The 

 effects, according to this writer, vary with the nature of the 

 poles in contact with the affected parts ; if, for example, a plate 

 of zinc and another of silver be taken and placed in contact 

 with a blistered surface, the sore covered by the zinc will first 

 cease to discharge, and will soon cicatrize. His experience led 

 him to assert that Galvanism was frequently useful in paralysis 

 of the extremities, as also in compression of the brain ; in 

 weakness of sight and gutta serena only due to the want of 

 excitability in the optic nerve ; in deafness, caused by nervous 

 weakness; in hoarseness and aphonia; in paralysis of the 

 sphincter ani and the muscles of the bladder. About the same 

 time, Lebouvier Desmortiers proposed the use of Galvanism 

 for the treatment of urinary calculi ; a round very hard stone, 

 weighing a grain, was completely dissolved in twenty-four hours. 



In certain experiments made upon frogs, Nobili believed 

 that he had discovered a remedy against tetanus and paralysis. 

 He observed that the contractions in the limbs of a frog in- 

 creased under the action of one kind of electrical current to 

 such an extent, as to produce an artificial tetanus, while a 

 contrary current completely did away with this effect: and 

 in his Traite de 1'Electricite, Becquerel remarks, relative to 

 Nobili's experiment, " that these observations are in the highest 

 degree important, and deserve more extended enquiry ; for, if we 

 can succeed in destroying at will tetanus, which has been brought 

 on in the frog by art, we may entertain the hope of curing 

 tetanus in man, a disease which inevitably proves fatal to the 

 individual who suffers from it." 



