HISTORY OF GALVANISM. 53 



usual effects of the galvanic apparatus.* The 

 experiment must be of difficult execution, and I 

 believe no one has since attempted to repeat it. 

 Should it be confirmed, it might throw some light 

 upon the experiments of Aldini, and assist in 

 the explanation of those facts where animal elec- 

 tricity seemed to be developed, without the in- 

 tervention of metallic bodies. 



About this time galvanic electricity began to be Galvanism 



. , . j- ii employed 



extensively employed in medicine, especially in in 

 those diseases where common electricity had been 

 previously found useful. It might have been ex- 

 pected that much benefit would have been derived 

 from so powerful an agent, and one which is so 

 easy of application to any part of the body. Our 

 expectations of advantage have, however, been 

 generally disappointed. Flattering accounts of 

 success were indeed published, in different nervous 

 disorders, in paralytic affections, in deafness, in 

 some kinds of blindness, in the recovery of per- 

 sons apparently drowned or suffocated, and even 

 in hydrophobia and insanity. But subsequent 

 trials did not support the credit which the remedy 

 acquired in the first instance ; it gradually fell into 

 disuse, and for several years it was very little em- 

 , ployed as a medical agent, until it was again 

 brought into notice by Dr. Philip, of Worcester. 

 From some pathological opinions which he adopted 

 on the nature of spasmodic asthma, he was in- 



* Journ. de Phys. vol. Ivi. p. 235. 



