ELECTRICITY IN MEDICINE. 
533 
Bat while the class of disbelievers is growing smaller the “advo¬ 
cates,’ are gradually augmenting in numbers and are striving to 
abort electricity from the field of charlatanry and to elevate it to 
its legitimate rank in medicine 
Again the fact that electricity and magnetism are empirical 
strongholds is no excuse for their non-recognition by scientists. 
I shall not discuss magnetism save to say that it bears a strange 
resemblance to electricity, that it may be utilized in the same way, 
that its curative repute is not to be ignored and that “ temporary 
magnets” are an essential factor in the construction of complex 
electrical apparatuses such as the Dubois Keymond Induction Coil, 
&c. &c. A magnet has the power of electrifying while electricity 
has the power of magnetising. A magnetic battery consists sim¬ 
ply of a number of magnets bound together with their like poles 
in the same direction and may be so constructed as to form a con¬ 
stant force. 
Magnetism has been employed with considerable success in 
hysteria, neuralgia, anasthesia and chorea, and it is possible that 
it may yet be skillfully utilized in the extraction of foreign metals 
from the eye and other delicate organs. 
A few short notes on “electro-physics” and “electro-physiolo¬ 
gy” will be pardoned, even though randomly delivered, when it is 
considered that I shall not burden you with the details of their 
theoretical application to disease. 
Electricity may be defined to be a powerful physical agent, 
morphologically unknown tho’ supposed to be a fluid, the exist¬ 
ence of whicn is made known chiefly by attraction and repulsion 
and by its luminous and heating effects. Its action is excited by 
heat, chemical action, friction and magnetism. The electricity 
is termed ‘static’ in contradistinction to ‘dynamic’ because it is 
not in a state of high tension. 
It is supposed that there are two kinds of electricity pervading 
all bodies, positive or vitreous, and negative or resinous. In the 
unelectrified condition these fluids just neutralize each other; but 
the equilibrium may be disturbed by physical agencies. 
Static electricity produces much the same physiological phen¬ 
omena as the ordinary faradic current and has been utilized in 
