314 
JOURNAL OF THE PLYMOUTH INSTITUTION. 
the formative parts of language, in order to guard against irregu- 
larity and "phonetic decay," a construction on such a principle as 
would leave room for growth and expansion, and, lastly, facility of 
acquisition. 
He anticipated the objection implied in the word Utopian, by 
observing that the most wonderful applications of science, which 
impart a peculiar glory to our own age, would certainly have been 
ridiculed as worse than Utopian only a few years ago; and con- 
cluded by saying that even as a mere speculation the subject 
was interesting, and furnished abundant materials for profitable 
discussion. 
EARLY ELECTRO-THERAPEUTICS. 
ABSTRACT OF DR. HEARDEll's PAPER. 
(Road October 17th, 1872.) 
The lecturer did not consider that any apology was needed for in- 
troducing a subject with which he had so frequently on former 
occasions occupied the attention of the Society ; for the branch of 
electricity which he had now to illustrate was, so far as the 
Society was concerned, comparatively new. The increasing im- 
portance which of late years had attached to it gave it a more 
than common interest. 
Many years since he delivered a lecture to the Society on electro- 
biology, in which he did not, it might possibly be remembered, 
attempt to enunciate the rash, untenable, and mischievous statement 
that electricity is life ; but he did, nevertheless, endeavour to prove 
that life and electricity were closely allied to each other, inasmuch 
as life gave rise to electrical actions which controlled and modified 
vital functions in organized tissues ; and in which sense electricity 
was the connecting link between the immaterial and the material. 
He did not on that occasion, however, make any allusions to the 
pathological influence of electricity, which was to form the subject 
of the present lecture. Year after year electricity was showing 
to what extent it could be made available in almost every depart- 
ment of art and manufacture ; and of later years we had begun to 
know more of its relation to our inner selves. He considered it to 
be a matter of regret that pathologists had for so long a time 
ignored the important part which it played in the animal economy, 
