32 



NA TURE 



[July 8, 1922 



mystery of mysteries, and we have not yet approached 

 its solution. But we must approach it ; for recurring 

 pandemics of influenza like the recent one are more 

 serious to civilised mankind than even the Great War. 



History of Electrotherapy. 



An Essay on the History of Electrotherapy and Diagnosis. 

 By Hector A. Colwell. Pp. xv + 180. (London : W. 

 Heinemann (Medical Books) Ltd.. 1922.) 175. 6d. 

 net. 



AN essay of 171 pages indicates a healthy respect 

 for the subject treated and this is handed on 

 to the reader who peruses it. Dr. Colwell has in some 

 ways been fortunate in his subject, because it is one 

 which yields to historical treatment when approached 

 by a scholar. Of the evidences of this latter quality 

 there is plenty of proof throughout this essay ; there 

 is a happy blending of historical accuracy, judgment 

 in selection of facts, and a sense of the real importance 

 of the subject of electrotherapy. The parent subject 

 is now rather apt to be somewhat eclipsed by the more 

 youthful one of radio-therapy, yet the benefit derived 

 from electro-therapeutic measures in diagnosis and in 

 the treatment of many diseases is a matter which need 

 not be laboured. 



Perhaps more than in any other branch of the healing 

 art, the scientific advance of the subject to its present 

 position has been one long series of spasmodic efforts 

 interspersed between long periods of quiescence and 

 indeed neglect. The neglect was probably the rational 

 outcome of the conditions of quackery which often 

 showed itself in the application of electricity to the 

 ills of the human body. It is probably not very far 

 from the truth to correlate this halting progress of the 

 subject with the parallel state of affairs in the study 

 and researches of a physical character into the nature 

 of electricity itself. 



It is interesting to read that a professor of physics, 

 one Jallabert of Genoa, is to be regarded as the first 

 scientific electrotherapist ; for it is a matter of history 

 that, in 1747, in collaboration with the surgeon Guyot, 

 1 he electrical current was employed by him to produce 

 muscular contractions in injured limbs, thus giving 

 them the exercise necessary for the restoration of their 

 normal functions. Though this is the case, the found- 

 ing of modern electrotherapy occurred almost a century 

 later as a result of the work of Duchenne of Boulogne. 



The essay traces the growth of the subject to the 

 present day. The last forty pages are devoted to the 

 subject of radiology, but perhaps the lapse of time since 

 the discovery of X-rays has been insufficient for a 

 successful treatment of the subject on historical lines. 

 Four pages of notes and an index complete a volume 

 NO. 2749, VOL. T io] 



which is very well produced and illustrated by a number 

 of plates of great individual interest. 



The author is to be congratulated on an essay 

 which marks out so clearly the milestones which have 

 been passed and the obstructions which have been met 

 in the journey of electrotherapy to its present-day 

 status. 



Mustard Gas Poisoning. 



The Medical Aspects of Mustard Gas Poisoning. By 

 Prof. A. S. Martin and Dr. C. V. Weller. Pp. 267. 

 (London : Henry Kimpton, 1919.) 42s. net. 



THIS volume is a belated account of investigations 

 carried out at Michigan during the war ; in 

 1917 it would have been eagerly welcomed, at the date 

 of publication which it bears it would have been 

 decidedly interesting, at the present time it will only 

 be so to specialists and historians. It tells, with a 

 wealth of detail which seems needless, of the effects 

 of /3-/J-dichlorethyl sulphide, or mustard " gas," on 

 various animals and on men accidentally gassed with 

 it at factories in America where the substance was 

 manufactured for gas offensive purposes during the 

 war. 



The substance is a general protoplasmic poison, 

 readily penetrating the epidermis and other tissues ; 

 once inside the cells it is probably hydrolysed, and the 

 extensive damage is due to local liberation of hydro- 

 chloric acid. The chief effects are therefore a destruc- 

 tion of all the cells with which the substance comes into 

 contact ; the eyes, lungs, and skin are the most likely 

 to be affected, and the danger lies chiefly in the fact 

 that the substance has but little smell, so that dangerous 

 concentrations may be encountered without arousing 

 suspicions in those unacquainted with the properties. 

 As the substance is a liquid of high boiling-point, soil 

 or other materials which have been fouled with it may 

 remain a source of danger for days. 



Treatment of the affected parts is directed chiefly 

 to the alleviation of symptoms ; chlorine destroys the 

 substance, so that local application of hypochlorites 

 is useful in the treatment of skin burns, which are the 

 most troublesome effects likely to be met with in men 

 whose eyes and lungs are protected by the wearing of 

 respirators. 



The reviewer himself worked out the chief 

 physiological effects of this substance on animals in 

 the spring of 1916, at the suggestion of his colleague 

 Dr. H. W. Dudley ; the results were reported through 

 the proper channels, but were not published. The 

 Germans first used the substance some fifteen months 

 afterwards. 



The work before us is the most complete and accurate 



