176 NATURE AND LIFE. 



other process could have detected. To it alone, according 

 to the way in which it affects a nerve or a muscle, belongs 

 the power, under certain circumstances, of determining the 

 nature and even the degree of alteration in nervous or 

 muscular elements. 



Aldini said that galvanism afforded a powerful means 

 of restoring vitality when suspended by any cause. Several 

 physicians, at the beginning of this century, restored life 

 by this means to dogs, after they had undergone all the 

 processes of drowning, and seemed dead. Hall6 and Sue 

 proposed at that period to place galvanic machines in the 

 different quarters of Paris, particularly near the Seine. This 

 wise and useful plan has not yet been put into execution, 

 though all experiments made since that time confirm the 

 proof of the efficiency of electricity in cases of asphyxia and 

 syncope, produced either by water or by poisonous gases. 

 The galvanic current also restores respiration in cases of 

 poisoning by ether or chloroform, even when recovery seems 

 hopeless. Surgeons who understand this effect, remember 

 it whenever chloroform seems dangerous to the patient 

 under its influence. 



Electricity is transformed into heat with great ease. 

 If an intense current is passed through a very short metallic 

 wire, it heats, reddens, and sometimes vaporizes it. This 

 property has been taken advantage of by surgeons for 

 the removal of various morbid excrescences. They intro- 

 duce a metallic blade at the base of the tumors or polypi 

 to be extirpated, and when this kind of electric knife be- 

 comes incandescent, under the influence of the galvanic cur- 

 rent, they give it such a movement that the diseased part 

 is separated by cauterization, as neatly as with a cutting 

 instrument. This method, which avoids effusion of blood, 

 and is attended by only slight pain, has yielded excellent 

 results in the hands of Marshall, Middeldorpf, S^dillot, 

 and Amussat. Besides this application, in which heat plays 



