THE ACTIVE FORCES OF LIVING ORGANISMS 93 



possible to insure an anabolic rather than a katobolic 

 character in metabolism. 



Hitherto we have dealt with the nervous system in 

 its normal condition, but it is possible by means of 

 electricity to raise it to a higher state of tension than 

 usually prevails, and the effects produced under these 

 circumstances have certain features which are of 

 interest : they are more intense, and in many cases, 

 perhaps in the majority, they are the result of re- 

 action. Electricity, as has been pointed out already, 

 has no physiological character of its own, nor can it 

 transmit any save that which it borrows from such 

 other agencies as constitute the environment of the 

 body during the period of electrification. The results 

 obtained from the use of it may be ascribed partly to 

 the intense vibration which is caused and to a slight 

 increase in the tendency to vibrate which remains as 

 an after-effect, but also in many instances to the 

 sudden cessation of this vibration, whereby the 

 character of the nervous rhythm is changed. The 

 benefit or harm which is likely to result from elec- 

 trical treatment depends, therefore, much less on the 

 electricity itself than on the conditions under which 

 the electrification is carried out. Electricity can, in a 

 word, give greater nervous mobility for a time, but it 

 cannot alone determine the character which that 

 mobility may assume. When electricity is admin- 

 istered in a bath there are certain factors which 

 deserve attention. If the temperature of the water 

 be above blood-heat it is evident that the nerve-cells, 



