tricity has proved to be one of the best of our therapeutic agents. In rheumatic diathesis, where other means had failed, it has proved successful.

In view of the great variety of uses to which electricity can be applied, it may not be out of place or objectionable for me to describe a very beautiful apparatus, just completed and attached to the bath-room of Mr. A. S. Bryant, of Springfield, Massachusetts, under my directions. It was manufactured by Mr. S. H. Bartlett, of No. 205 East 22d street, New York, and consists of a battery of eighty Leclanché cells, set upon the shelves in the attic, so connected and wired as to combine two quart-cells, thus making forty half-gallon eliminating cells. These are connected by an insulating cable of fortyone covered wires to a neatly-finished switch-board arranged for forty-one patients, ranging from 0 to 40 on a (Vulcanite) black polished backing, with nickelled points and switches to form connection and charge the polarity of the currents. has also primary and secondary faradiac coils attached, for use when this form of electricity is desirable. The whole is enclosed in a beautiful cabinet to match the finish of the bathroom, and is placed on the wall at the head of the bath, and connected by cable as already described, to each two elements of the eighty-cell battery-thus producing a strong galvanic current.

The cathode is attached by thumb-screws to the bath-tub, while the anode is fixed to the holder. Upon this holder the hands of the person must rest while in the bath.

This makes a beautiful attachment to the bath-room, and is a luxury which few, even the wealthy, have enjoyed.

The purposes of this bath are both of electrolysis and the promoting of elimination, as well as for the introducing of certain kinds of medicine into the body when the organs of digestion are too sensitive to receive or appropriate them.

DEFINITIONS.

When the negative pole of the battery is attached to the bath-tub, and the positive pole to the holder, upon which the hands of the bather are to rest, this bath is electro-positive.

When, however, the positive pole of the battery is attached to the bath-tub, and the negative pole to the holder, the bath is electro-negative.

The water is a conductor, and hence the medicine employed must be electro-positive or electro-negative, as the case may be, according to the direction of the electric current.

The pole-charger is used to charge the direction of the current without charging the wires, as with all other cabinet batteries.

When used under the direction of one who understands Electro-Therapeutics as taught and employed by the best and most advanced physicians of the Eclectic School, this battery becomes a most powerful aid in relieving and curing many obstinate cases otherwise incurable. The electro-motor force is so nicely graded and so easily manipulated, that it can be used with the greatest difficulty from the youngest to the oldest, from the feeblest to the strongest.

I. Mrs.

CASES.

aged seventy, came to me about three years Her former medical adviser had diagnosticated her case as Bright's disease in its last stage. Indeed there was general failure of heart and brain, and threatened general collapse, apparently certain to result in death if relief could not be speedily obtained. There were valvular disease of the heart, excessive albuminuria and general anasarca. The heart labored with its characteristic thud and marked regurgitation. It was acting very feebly, and the disease of the mitral and semilunar valves was very marked. The whole body was enormously swollen; the abdomen tense and hard; the limbs and feet about three times their normal size. The liver and kidneys were inactive; the urine contained about 25 per cent. of albumen; the skin of the neck was ecchymosed, and the limbs were of a pallid, glassy whiteness. In this condition I was asked to try and do something to prolong life. Accordingly I employed medication to relieve the urgent symptoms. After this electric baths were given twice a week, but speedily as her strength returned, were increased to three each week.

Before she had taken ten she became able to ride or walk about, with an attendant; and before the second ten were. completed, she was able to go about the city and do her own. shopping. Soon after she returned home, able to superintend her own household, and walk whither she desired to go. She continued to improve. The bloating after a while entirely disappeared, and the albumen was no where deposited. She recovered her ordinary good health and continues in its enjoyment. She had found the baths so efficacious that she caused the necessary apparatus to be set up in her own house, and now makes use of them twice a week, except when absent from home on her summer outing.

II. Miss, aged sixteen; chloro-anæmic, with skin. bloodless, white and pallid; urine clear and white, alkaline in reäction, with scanty saccharine deposits, and frequent and abundant flow. She also had chlorotic convulsions frequently, sometimes every day and even twice a day, and required a constant attendant. She began the taking of tonic and sedative electric baths, two or three a week, approved proper. Under this treatment she improved rapidly, and continued to gain in health and strength till she became completely well and hearty. No other medicine was administered, except a saline cathartic. She supports herself by her own daily labor. III. Miss ;aged twenty-two, suffered from keratitis of both eyes. The opacity was so great as almost to cover the pupils, and she required to be led about by an attendant. The most celebrated oculists had declared that she would never regain her sight, but would become totally blind. Eliminating tonic and electric eye-baths were arranged, with most gratifying results. The members gradually became normal; opacity disappeared. The sight was restored, and it still remains in excellent condition, as can be judged from the fact that she is employed for the most part in sewing upon black fabrics.

These three cases have been selected from many, which have been equally successful. They are briefly related as typical, illustrating as they do the remarkably restorative and eliminative effects obtained from these baths. These were

long kept secret by "Vergne," and afforded him a good living till he and his assistants had passed away. The "secret" now belongs to the medical profession.

No greater restoration for the weary brain, and its exhaustive forces, is known.

ELECTRO-THERAPEUTICS IN NERVOUS

DISEASES.

By H. POVALL, M. D., Mt. Morris, New York.

That electricity is a most valuable therapeutic agent in many neuralgic affections is a fact recognised by the most. eminent, as well as by the busy general practioners of medicine in all civilised lands. Its modus operandi has received the most careful observation by our best and most careful students of physical phenomena, who have evolved a code of laws governing its form of application, wisely discriminating between the diseases in which it may be employed as a specific. The busy physician need not be at a loss for information on these topics in these days, since the literature on these subjects is so abundant, fresh and cheap, as to be within reach of every one. When unattended by any morbid change in the periphery of the nerve, but rather due to inflammation of the nerve-sheath, electricity may be relied upon in the followings: First-superficial; second, visceral. First, trigeminal, cervico-occipital, cervico-brachial, dorsal-intercostal, lumbo-abdominal, crural, obturator, femero-popliteal, coccydinal. Second,-visceral, cardiac, uterine and ovarian, urethra, bladder, rectum, kidney, testis and gastralgia.

Paralysis and functional nervous diseases have furnished the best evidences of the value of electricity, since there is scarcely a form of these painful affections in which its power to relieve-in some cases temporarily-but in most cases permanently, has not been shown. It may act by diverting the mind from troubles real or fancied; or the counter-irritating effect may have the same purpose as other counter-irritants, whose power to relieve pain is so well recognised. Occasionally it

will give relief when every known remedy has failed, and in such we must suppose that it acts by bringing about some change in the nerves themselves, by its specific action on nerve-tissue. Writers on this subject are not agreed as to which pole should be applied to painful parts, but all agree that all three forms may be employed for the relief of pain. Strong faradisation serves in some cases to give relief. The effect of galvanism should be tried in every case of neuralgia, but it is not capable of relieving all cases, and disappointment is not infrequent. Where muscular movements increase the the neuralgic pains rythmical exercise of the affected muscles should be conjoined with galvanism. Headache of all kinds not infrequently yields to electricity. Lumbago, sciatica and more painful muscular conditions which we call rheumatic, are quickly relieved by it. Tinnitus aurium will sometimes. yield to the galvanic carrent when all other remedies have failed.

Under the head of Electro-Therapeutics, Dr. Ranney, of New York, in Annual of the Universal Medical Sciences, vol. V., 1888, very strongly advises the use of static electricity in preference to galvanism or faradisation. He says, page 90: "I have found heavy static sparks to surpass any other form of electrical application, for the relief contracted muscles, post-paralytic contraction, old deformities from preternaturally-shortened muscles, and the various forms of obstinate and protracted tonic muscular spasm often yield like magic to the influence of heavy sparks." The severe pain of muscular rheumatism "by one application of heavy sparks to the seat of pain for a few minutes has caused permanent relief." "Neuralgias of a distressing kind are often dissipated after a few applications of heavy indirect static sparks for from five to ten minutes at a sitting." Then follows this strong statement, "I know of no other agent which exerts so marked an effect of a happy kind upon the lightening pain observed in locomotor ataxia, as does the heavy static spark." Again he says, "I have obtained a complete restoration of muscular power in special nerve-trunks by static sparks alone after the 'reaction of degeneration' was fully developed and all faradaic excitability had ceased."