MEDICAL ELECTRICITY. 17 



M. Orioli recommends, that before attempting to apply Elec- 

 tricity therapeutically, we should study the nature of the 

 secretions produced, in order that we may be enabled to create 

 in the secreting organ a proper electrical state for bringing 

 about contrary effects. These secretions will be acid, alkaline- 

 or neutral. If they be acid or alkaline no difficulty will exist ; 

 if they are neutral we should apply to the affected part the pole 

 of the battery opposed to that electrical state which belongs to 

 the normal condition of this part. 



He proposes for this purpose, to apply, in two convenient 

 parts of the body previously denuded, after the method of 

 Mansford, two discs, the one of zinc, the other of silver, con- 

 nected to each other with a metallic wire, keeping them in 

 their proper situations by convenient bandages, for days, weeks, 

 and even months, and only cleaning them when absolutely 

 necessary. According to this distinguished philosopher, this 

 remedial agent may be employed in the interior of the bladder, 

 by introducing a sound whose extremity only is a conductor, 

 while the remainder is covered with an insulating coating. This 

 sound might be connected with one pole of the voltaic appara- 

 tus, while the other should be made to communicate with the 

 kidneys. " Perhaps," he adds, " by this means we may suc- 

 ceed in decomposing calculi much more easily than has hitherto 

 been imagined." 



If the observation of another experimentalist, which we have 

 already quoted (page 14) be true, that the sore, corresponding to 

 the negative pole, has always a tendency to cicatrize, it might 

 be possible to apply this fact usefully to the cure of certain in- 

 veterate ulcers, by bringing them into contact occasionally with 

 the negative pole of a battery." 



In our own country, our knowledge of the effects of Elec- 

 tricity remedially, is chiefly due to Mr. Carpue, Dr. Wilson 

 Phillips, Dr. Golding Bird, and others ; but as we shall have 

 occasion hereafter to speak of the results arrived at from their 

 experimental researches, we do not deem it necessary in this 

 place to say more in detail of them. 



