262 Electricity and Galvanism. 



body, and where an issue or seton, or discharge from the moxa or 

 actual cautery would be desirable. Now the knife for the issue, the 

 needle for the seton, and the ignited tinder or red-hot iron, all have 

 their terrors for timid patients, and there is often the greatest 

 unwillingness to induce patients to use such means. Now I have 

 to offer to the notice of the profession a mode of inducing persistent 

 discharge free from all these objections, in the form of what I beg to 

 call the electric moxa. It was long ago observed by Humboldt, 

 and afterwards by Grapengiessier, that when a simple galvanic arc 

 was applied to a blistered surface, the part opposed to the most 

 oxidizable metal was more irritated than that to which the negative 

 plate was applied. In applying such a simple arc to the treatment 

 of paralysis, I was struck with the remarkable effects produced, and 

 such a combination of its results induces me to propose the fol- 

 lowing ready mode of establishing a discharge from the surface of 

 the body. Order two small blisters, the size of a shilling, to be 

 applied to any part of the body, one a few inches below the other ; 

 when the cuticle is thus raised by effused serum, snip it, and apply 

 to the one from whence a permanent discharge is required a piece 

 of zinc foil, and to the other a piece of silver ; connect them by a 

 copper wire, and cover them with a common water dressing and 

 oiled silk. If the zinc plate be raised in a few hours, the surface 

 of the skin will look white, as if rubbed over with nitrate of silver. 

 In forty-eight hours a decided eschar will appear, which (still keep- 

 ing on the plates) will begin to separate at the edges in four or five 

 days. The plates may then be removed, and the surface where 

 the silver was applied will be found to be completely healed. A 

 common poultice may be applied to the part, and a healthy granu- 

 lating sore, with well-defined edges, freely discharging pus, will be 

 left. During the whole of this process, if the patient complains 

 of pain at all, it will always be referred to the silver plate, where 

 in fact, the blister is rapidly healing, and not the slightest complaint 

 will be made of the zinc plates, where the slough is as rapidly form- 

 ing. A very interesting physiological phenomenon is observed in 

 making an issue by these means. If the plates be applied to a limb, 

 and on different places, contraction of the subjacent muscles will 

 always be observed most severe when the patient is in the act of 



