Electricity and Galvanism. 121 



I am sure that all whom I have the honour of addressing will 

 concede to me the importance of the physician frequently making 

 excursions into the domain of the physical sciences, and culling from 

 it whatever blossoms he thinks likely to bear fruit in his own peculiar 

 department. That he may often find his cherished sucklings abortive 

 is probable ; but that he will as often thus graft a vigorous shoot on 

 the venerable trunk of medicine is certain. 



I have, Sir, ventured to make these remarks as in some sense 

 apologetic for the subject-matter of these lectures, which, at your own 

 wish, are no longer to be limited to the mere details of the materia 

 medica, but are permitted to be devoted to a consideration of some 

 of the applications of physics to medicine. I could only wish that I 

 were more fitted for this honorable task, and would beg to deprecate 

 your patience should I fail in performing this duty properly : for if, 

 used as I am to the duties of the lecture room, I find it impossible to 

 enter the theatre of Guy's Hospital without a deep sense of my res- 

 ponsibility, how much more must be that feeling enhanced when I 

 find myself addressing the fellows and licentiates of this College ! 

 many of whom may truly be said to be the conscript fathers of my 

 profession, and to whose example and guidance I have long looked 

 up with feelings akin to awe and veneration. 



Few subjects have more frequently, or with greater interest from 

 time to time, attracted the notice of the physician than the nature 

 and applications of electricity, and its modifications to medicine and 

 physiology. Too frequently, however, has the importance of this 

 wonderful and ever-present agent been overlooked, and its application 

 to medicine left to the empiric. Recent researches have invested 

 this matter with the deepest interest, both to the physiologist, the 

 chemist, and man of general science ; more particularly when, from 

 late investigations, it appears that we are constantly generating this 

 agent, and that quoad the supply of electric matter, man far exceeds 

 the torpedo or the electric eel, and is only prevented from emitting a 

 benumbing shock whenever he extends his hand to greet his neigh- 

 bour, from the absence of special organs for increasing its tension. I 

 therefore purpose, as the first subject of these lectures, to draw the 

 attention of the College to the part played by electricity in a phy- 

 siological as well as therapeutic point of view, and hope to shew that 



