APPLICATION OF GALVANISM. 49 



the lungs, the heart, and the diaphragm, that is, to the organs 

 whose functions we are anxious to revive. The same method of 

 manipulation may he employed in all cases where the interrupted 

 galvanic discharge is requisite, that is to say, where it is desirous 

 to stimulate the nerves to increased action, and where, hy the 

 practitioner, it may not be deemed advisable to have recourse to 

 the electro-magnetic coil machine, presently to be described. 



Whenever galvanism then, is intended to produce an exciting 

 effect, it must be exhibited so as to produce shocks, or in the 

 form of the internipted current. There are however, certain 

 affections, in which it is conceived most beneficial when flowing 

 in a continuous stream ; the specific effects of it, when thus 

 applied, being supposed of a sedative kind. This opinion of the 

 difference of action of the voltaic pile, in the two conditions of 

 it just described, does not rest upon mere conjecture ; it is based 

 upon the observations of medical electricians, and upon the 

 experiments of Nobili and others which we have already detailed. 

 It is generally thought that convulsive affections, not excluding 

 tetanus itself, may probably admit of being controuled by 

 galvanism ; but that in these, the method of administration 

 should be the opposite to that for paralysis ; or that instead of 

 the interrupted, the continued current should be resorted to; and 

 that to obtain the maximum tranquillizing effect, the electricity 

 should be transmitted along the nerves, in a direction contrary 

 to that of their ramifications. 



In the therapeutic administration of galvanism, the feelings 

 of the patient must be our guide as to the strength of the 

 charge which should be employed in each particular case ; some 

 will sustain with impunity the shocks of a battery which would 

 prove most distressing and injurious to others; the dose may 

 be graduated to any required degree of nicety, by properly 

 varying the interval between the conducting wires, for upon 

 this, with a given machine and exciting fluid, will depend the 

 degree of energy of the developed electricities ; the strength, in 

 fact, of the galvanic shock, depends not so much upon the size, 

 as upon the number of pairs which compose the battery ; the 

 power too of the batteries, will depend much upon the strength 



