LOCALIZED ELECTEIZATION. 



CHAPTER I. 



MEDICAL ELECTRICITY. 



Three varieties of electricity are employed in medicine — friction 

 electricity, contact electricity, and induced electricity.^ The first 

 is also called static electricity; the last two are included under 

 the term dynamic electricity. 



The first question. which suggests itself with regard to them, the 

 importance of which is self-evident, is as follows : — In their physio- 

 logical and therapeutical applications, when it is desired to limit 

 their action within certain organs, is it a matter of indifference 

 which of the three varieties is employed ? In other words, are the 

 physiological and therapeutical properties of the three varieties 

 identical ? 



I have no intention to set forth the various and discordant 

 opinions which have prevailed upon this point. To do so would 

 be to enter into historical questions, which I am desirous as far as 

 possible to leave unnoticed. But I must observe that several 

 physicians, who have made a special study of the therapeutical 

 applications of electricity, have remarked certain differences 

 between the properties of the static and of the dynamic form. 

 Fabre Palaprat, for example, taught that static electricity was 

 chiefly applicable to paralysis of sensation, and to the excitation of 

 the muscles of relation ; whilst, on the contrary, contact electricity 

 was only adapted for the excitation of the muscles of organic life, 

 or of delicate organs, such as the eye, the ear, &c. 



These statements have been reproduced in many special treatises, 

 although they did not rest upon any serious research ; and althouo-h, 

 as I shall presently demonstrate, they were not in harmony with 

 the physiological properties of the different forms of electricity. 

 It is therefore not surprising that they should have been neglected 



[1 The two former varieties of electricity 

 are now commonly termed by physicists 

 franklinic electricity and voltaic electricity. 

 It is greatly to be desired that this ter- 



minology should be adopted in works 

 devoted to the medical application of 

 electricity. — H. T.] 



B 2 



