On the electrolytic treatment of tumours and other surgical diseases : being a paper read before the Medical Society of London, on January 28, 1867 / by Julius Althaus.

  • Althaus, Julius, 1833-1900.
Date:
1867
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On the electrolytic treatment of tumours and other surgical diseases : being a paper read before the Medical Society of London, on January 28, 1867 / by Julius Althaus. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, Harvard Medical School.

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    can be collected, unless care be taken to increase in propor- tion the resistance of the electro-motive apparatus itself, which is done by increasing the number of pairs, that is, by forming a Voltaic pile. The greater the number of pairs, the higher will be the tension, that is, the easier will be the transmission of electricity. It is evident, from these purely theoretical considerations that no galvanic heat can be produced if the current is applied in such a manner that the whole body or part of the body is placed within the circuit of the battery; as is done for instance, if a needle connected with the negative pole is inserted into the depth of a tumour, while a moistened con- ductor connected with the positive pole is placed outside on the skin. 1 have, however, taken the trouble to set this question at rest by actual experiment. I immersed the two poles of the battery, at a certain distance from each other, into animal fluids, thus letting the current travel from the positive to the negative pole, and vice versa, and I then read off the temperature, at the poles as well as in the liquid itself, on a Negretti and Zambra's thermometer, which allows variations of one tenth of a degree of Fahrenheit to be distinctly deter- mined. Now I found that whether I used five, ten, fifteen or twenty cells of the battery, no elevation of temperature took place. The effects of a current administered in this way, are therefore simply electrolytic, and have nothing whatever to do with the galvanic cautery. I was first led to adopt the electrolytic treatment in con- sequence of a series of microscopical observations I made some time ago, on the changes which animal structures undergo, under the influence of the chemical action of the continuous galvanic current. As far as I am aware, not a single observation has yet been made by any other observer in this department of microscopical research; and knowing the powerful electrolytic effects of the continuous current, I