ng, No. 16, 1875.]

CHAPTER III.

PHYSIOLOGICAL EFFECTS.

In accordance with the plan of the present work, the remarks I shall
offer under this head are by no means intended to comprise all that is
known at the present day of the physiological effects of electricity in
general. It was my purpose when I undertook to write these pages, to
offer to the profession a book confined to one subject; not a
compilation, but a volume made up almost if not wholly of original
matter, chiefly, if not entirely the result of my own observations and
experience. For the general physiological effects then of electricity as
well as for the theories of its action, I refer those interested to the
many excellent works on the subject that have appeared within the last
few years. I will treat here only of the physiological effects peculiar
to the electric bath.

The daily observations that I have had the opportunity of making in this
respect, extending as they do over a period of upwards of two years,
have not been as fruitful of results as might be expected. This is due
mainly to the circumstance that but a small percentage--and these took
the baths merely as a refreshing tonic--of those whom I have had the
opportunity of observing, were in a condition that might be called
normal. By far the greater majority were suffering from some complaint,
in most instances of a neurotic or rheumatic nature, the presence of
which, while it afforded admirable opportunity for observing therapeutic
results, modified more or less the physiological effects of the baths,
and served to deprive them of a uniformity which might to a great extent
justly be looked for in healthy organisms. If, therefore, what I now
contribute to the physiology of the subject is but little, it will I
trust be at least found of practical utility in its applicability to the
therapeutics of the subject.

Before entering into details, it is necessary in the first place to
inquire in what respects electric baths differ from other methods of
electrization--especially those recently introduced as "general"--that
their physiological effects should merit individual consideration. They
differ in two ways. One of these is self-evident. To the effects of
electricity are superadded those of the warm bath. The effects of the
warm bath _per se_ are too familiar to every physician to require
comment. Its effects in combination with ele