150 THIRTY-FIVE YEARS IN THE EAST, 



buckles, and" chains produce still greater effects, and I anrj 

 of opinion that such rings, &c., are not only useful during 

 the cholera, but are beneficial in many other respects. I 

 have myself enjoyed the best of health during the last six 

 years, which I attribute in a great measure to the wearing 

 of a ring of this description. I must observe that those who 

 make use of such galvano-electric rings, ought not to be 

 anxious when experiencing any slight indisposition, and 

 should avoid resorting at once to strong remedies, lest the 

 ill effects of those remedies should be attributed to the 

 ring, and thus destroy the confidence of the vi^earer, and 

 lead to a false conclusion. While advising persons to wear 

 such rings, it is not, however, to be considered that they 

 are talismans or amulets ; their virtues are of another 

 character, which I will endeavour to explain. We know well 

 what mighty influence the electric and magnetic fluid ex- 

 ercises on the material world, and that it produces many of 

 those wonderful phenomena, which the wisdom of antiqui- 

 ty was unable to explain ; but our modern naturalists 

 have succeeded, if not in absolutely discovering the hitherto 

 hidden secrets of nature, at least in lifting a portion of 

 the veil which conceals them. There is no doubt that an 

 electro-magnetic fluid is diffused through our most subtile 

 nerves, its source or battery is the brain, and it is probable 

 that the wise Creator, for that reason, has there united all the 

 organs of sensation. Through the continual mild and slight 

 stimulation which these rings produce upon the nervous sys- 

 tem, in consequence of their affinity with the electric fluid 

 existing in the body, we may believe them to operate in a 

 manner analogus to lightning conductors, and thus to main- 

 tain the functions of the nerves in their normal state. I re- 

 fer the reader, as regards the construction of these rings, to 

 the illustrations of those which I distributed at Lahore and 

 Vienna, as given in the second volume of this work. 



In the last year of my sojourn at Lahore, 1849, I observ- 

 ed, in the English medical journals, a description of a 

 galvano-electric apparatus, consisting of one zinc and one 

 silver plate, united by a silver wire, and the statement of its 



