I8S5-J 
Analyses of Books. 
235 
Electricity, and its Manner of Working in the Treatment of 
Disease. A Thesis for the M.D. Degree of the University of 
Cambridge. By W. E. Steavenson, M.D., M.R.C.P., 
M.R.C.S. Eng., &c. To which is appended an “ Inaugural 
Medical Dissertation on Electricity, for the Degree of DoCtor 
of Medicine of the University of Edinburgh. Written in 
Latin by Dr. Robert Steavenson, 1778, with a Translation 
by the Rev. F. R. Steavenson, M.A. London : J. and A. 
Churchill. 
1 his work is not, as we at first feared from the title on the cover, 
an elementary manual of eleCtricity, but an investigation of a 
subject as yet very imperfectly understood — the aCtion of electri- 
city upon the animal economy in disease. Curiously enough, 
the medical application of electricity, instead of having made im- 
portant advances, has fallen into negleCt. As the author re- 
marks, — “The knowledge 'of many of the wonderful effects 
derived by treatment with eleCtricity a hundred years ago has 
now faded into oblivion, and is unknown to the practitioner of the 
the present day.” This is the more to be wondered at and 
regretted, since the electrical appliances which might now be 
made available in the healing art are vastly improved and ex- 
tended. Still more is it to be deplored that the medical applica- 
tions of this powerful and versatile agent should have fallen so 
largely into the hands of the quacks : but quackery in its various 
types is now, for a season, lord of the ascendant. 
The author thinks that statical eleCtricity in the form of the 
positive charge is possibly preferable in fundlional diseases, such 
as hysteria and nerve prostration. But where organic changes 
are present the current, continuous or interrupted, has been found 
greatly superior. 
We find here a mention of some very curious fads. Thus, 
lunatics “ offer an extraordinary amount of resistance to the 
passage of an eleCtric current.” Whether this be due to the ab- 
normal harshness and dryness of the skin (as is often the case) 
or to some unusual condition of the internal organs is not decided. 
It is here remarked that “ many of the good results of eleCtricity 
have been unattained and entirely disbelieved in because the cur- 
rent has been passed through the body in a hap-hazard way, often 
with the patient only holding the handles of some kind of elec- 
trical machine, which has produced most uncomfortable sensa- 
tions and sometimes pain, with very little appreciable effect upon 
the organ it was wished to influence, and which possibly was 
situate in some remote part of the body.” This is too true : we 
have heard of the attempt made by a charlatan to decompose a 
urinary calculus by causing the patient to grasp the handles of 
the machine with both hands. 
