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. Hallé 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, Sédillot, 
and Amussat. Besides this application, in which heat plays 
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