genesis-Referred to a Polar State. - Electric Tetanus. Centrifugal Current excites Motion; Centripetal, Sensation. Sympathetic and Idio-pathic Shocks. – Mode of exciting.—Origin of Electricity in the Prime Conductor.-Positive Sparks.—Insulating Chair - Sub- stitute for. Galvanic Trough — Mode of exciting. Induced Electric Currents-Mode of exciting.-Primary and Secondary Currents.-Description of Electro-mag- netic Machine with double Current-With single Current. - Electricity of different Tensions.-Employment of Action of Electricity on Contractile Tissues. — Application In Flooding after Abortion-In Paralysis of the Bladder Incontinence of Urine. — Treatment of Pa- - Portio dura.-Paralysis from Local Injury.-Hysterical Paralysis. Aphonia in Hysterical Girls. - Paralysis from Anæmia and Nervous Exhaustion.-Paralysis from Cerebral or Spinal Structural Lesions. - Electricity as a Stimulant to the Absorbents In Rheumatic Effusions -In Tonsillitis.-Application of in Neuralgia-In Nar- cotic Poisoning-In Drowning. - Local Anæsthesia. Treatment of Chorea and allied Affections by Electricity. LECTURES ON ELECTRICITY AND GALVANISM. LECTURE I. Connection of Physic and Physics.—Sketch of the History of the Subject. Constitution of Matter. - Ethereal Medium. - Effects of its Vibrations.—Electric Equilibrium — Disturbed by Friction By Chemical Influence. — Luminous, Thermal, and Magnetic Effects of Electric Discharge -Excited by Change of Temperature. - Evolution of, in the Human Subject.— Galvani's great Discovery. - Volta's Explanation of. — Aldini's Researches and Anticipation of some modern Observations. - Neuro-Electric Theories. Valli's Hint at the Centripetal Origin of Nerves. His Frog Battery. · Matteucci's Frog Battery. Intense Susceptibility of muscular Structure of Frogs.- Delicacy of Frog Galvanoscope. - Muscular Currents.—Currents of Batrachians. MR. PRESIDENT, MORE than twenty-three centuries have passed away, since the great father of physic, the "divine old man" of Cos, felt the necessity for the adoption of some conventional term by which he could express the influence under which the dif B ferent phenomena, as well of the macrocosm of the world at large as of the microcosm of man himself, were developed. We are indebted to his ingenuity for the invention of the hypothesis of a principle which is supposed to influence all the manifestations of creative power observed in the universe. To this he applied the name of puois, viz., "nature." Hippocrates, however, invested his quous with a kind of intelligence, under which it was supposed to exert a tendency to promote all actions which were beneficial, and repress those which were injurious, to the well-being of man. He, indeed, seems to have regarded it as a kind of tutelary deity; in which dark notion he appears to have been followed by others, on whom a light had beamed which had not reached the distant ages of the Coan sage, and thus leaves them without an excuse for the adoption of such an opinion. We indeed know that "Nature is but the name for an effect, and in this light we profess to be investigators into its laws and phenomena. The different sections into which such investigations have been divided, have received the name of physical sciences, or sciences of nature. Of these, the departments devoted to an investigation of the structure and laws of the animal frame, in health and disease, become the especial object of pursuit of the practitioner of the healing art. If, however, his information be limited to such portions of knowledge exclusively, it will indeed be scanty. He can never be expected to extend the domains of the art he professes, or hope to add fresh appliances to the science of healing. "Medicina est ars conjecturalis" was the remark uttered some eighteen centuries ago, and such must ever be the case so long as the practitioner of medicine limits himself to his own exclusive pursuits. The light such a man can hope to throw upon any of the phenomena of life, will be often just sufficient to render his darkness visible. But he who, whilst devoting his attention chiefly to the art he professes, at the same time reflects upon it all the light he can derive from the collateral sciences, will often succeed in throwing upon it a beam which illuminates the phenomena he is studying to an extent previously unhoped for. Witness the influence of chemistry and general physics in unravelling the intricate web of many of the vital functions. There have, in all ages, existed men of narrow minds, who have heaped their ridicule upon those who have possessed the advantages to which I have just alluded, as if medicine were the only science in which the element of excellence must consist in a profound ignorance of all other subjects. This |