e engendered--and I doubt not there are
many, I cannot on reviewing my work accuse myself of lack of candor nor
yet of undue enthusiasm. I have cited but a small proportion of the
successful cases whereof I possess records; still I believe that I have
adduced amply sufficient clinical proof of the great value as a remedial
agent of electric baths, and of the desirability of their more general
adoption. I would more especially call attention to the
inappropriateness of deferring their employment until almost all other
remedies have been exhausted; and when I reflect that pretty much all
those cases that had been referred to me by other physicians had already
had the doubtful benefit of almost every other conceivable treatment,
while many of those who came of their own accord, had in addition made
the rounds of all the quacks, and exhausted nearly all the nostrums that
are to be found advertised in the columns of our daily papers, the
wonder seems that the results obtained were as good as they have been. I
sincerely trust that in the future physicians will avail themselves
more frequently than heretofore of a remedy that is certainly capable of
accomplishing much good; and I hope that in addition to myself there
will be found others, more competent, to devote themselves to the study
of the subject. To these, and perhaps to myself at a future time, I
relegate the task of correcting my errors and promulgating hitherto
undiscovered truths.

Footnotes:

[Footnote 10: Centralblatt fuer die medicinischen Wissenschaften,
No. 17, 1875.]

[Footnote 11: The apparatus used in these experiments was that
of Du Bois-Reymond, with a Grove's element.]

[Footnote 12: Since writing the above, this case has had an
entirely favorable termination.]

[Footnote 13: The cases distinguished by an asterisk were
published in No. 216 of the "Medical Record."]

[Footnote 14: Wherever I use the word "general" as descriptive
of an electric current used in the bath, it is not as a
characteristic, but merely to distinguish it from the instances
where the surface board is employed.]

[Footnote 15: Austin Flint, M.D. A Treatise on the Principles
and Practice of Medicine. Philadelphia, 1873. 4th ed. pp. 63 and
64.]

[Footnote 16: See Beard and Rockwell, op. cit., 2d ed. p. 472.]

[Footnote 17: This was written a year ago. See remarks preceding
the case.]