A practical treatise on medical electricity, containing a historical sketch of frictional and voltaic electricity, as applied to medicine. With plain instructions for the use of electric, galvanic, & electro-magnetic instruments; and embracing an account of the most recent researches of Matteucci / [George Thomas Fisher].

  • Fisher, George Thomas, approximately 1822-1847.
Date:
1845
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A practical treatise on medical electricity, containing a historical sketch of frictional and voltaic electricity, as applied to medicine. With plain instructions for the use of electric, galvanic, & electro-magnetic instruments; and embracing an account of the most recent researches of Matteucci / [George Thomas Fisher]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    15/98
    INTRODUCTORY REMARKS. In the following pages, the author of this little treatise proposes to lay before the reader the present state of our know- ledge respecting Electricity as a remedial agent. From various causes, Electricity, as a medical agent, has not yet had a full and fair trial, such as to enable the practitioner at once to predict whether in any proposed case it will be a sanative or inert application. In the early history of Electrical Science, it was anticipated, that, from its powerful influence on the human frame, it would prove a valuable auxiliary in the healing art; nor were there wanting those who were sanguine enough to regard it as an universal medicine, which might be resorted to in every form of disease. Philosophers had before them an agent of subtlety almost unexampled, which traversed the ani- mal frame with unmeasured and irresistible activity—which affected the neivous and muscular system in a maimer which it was beyond the power of volition to controul ; and it was nei- ther absurd nor unreasonable to suppose that such an agent might, under some modification, produce a salutary effect upon the diseases to which mortality is heir. But unfortunately, the progress of the science was arrested by the extravagant asser- tions promulgated relative to its success. Charlatans of every degree found the electrical machine a lucrative article of trade ; and there were not wanting well-meaning enthusiasts, who con- tributed to prolong the reign of Medical Electricity. The more sober part of the medical profession on the other hand, finding the utter fallacy of many of these assertions—ascertaining that many of the experiments which had been published were