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III. On the effects of galvanism in restoring the due action of the 
lungs. By A. P. Wilson Philip, Physician in Worcester. 
Communicated by Sir Everard Home, Bart. V. P. R. S. 
Read November 21, 1816. 
In the prosecution of an inquiry in which I have been en- 
gaged for several years, some of the results of which were 
published in the Philosophical Transactions of last year, I 
have had occasion to make many experiments with galvanism, 
which seem to me to point out with more precision than has 
yet been done, what we are to expect from it in the cure of 
disease ; and I think it will appear from what I am about to 
say, that to the want of discrimination in its employment we 
must ascribe the little advantage which medicine has hitherto 
derived from the discovery of this influence. 
It seems to be an inference both from my own experiments 
and observations and those of others, which I had the honour 
to lay before the Society in my first paper, that what is called 
the nervous system, comprehends two distinct systems, thq 
sensorial, and the nervous system properly so called. Now 
it does not appear that galvanism can perform any of the 
functions of the sensorial system, yet, in the greater number 
of instances in which it has been used in medicine, it has been 
expected to restore the sensorial power. It has been expected 
to restore hearing, and sight, and voluntary power. It may 
now and then happen in favorable cases, from the connection 
