me extent exercised by local
electrization, is here distinguished by its far greater constancy as
well as by its greater degree of perfection. That this difference should
exist, appears quite natural, when it is considered that the same
topical influences which produce it in local electrizations, and which I
shall presently endeavor to analyze, are here brought to bear on the
entire system. The hypnotic effect is both immediate and remote, and
more or less permanent. When there is an immediate inclination to sleep,
which may make itself manifest during the bath or immediately after
this, it is generally accompanied by a

PLEASANT SENSE OF FATIGUE,

which cannot be likened to weariness, but rather to what we feel after
moderate exercise; it is only in some instances, where an individual
takes his first bath, or where, for therapeutic reasons, a strong
faradic current--accompanied by responsive muscular contractions--is
employed, that this feeling is intensified sufficiently to become
unpleasant, calling for rest and recuperation, and must here be looked
upon as analogous to the effects of _severe_ exercise. It invariably
disappears after a brief rest.

Experience and good judgment will enable us moreover in almost all cases
to avoid effects of this kind. The immediate inclination to sleep is
much more decided as well as constant when the bath is taken late in the
day, than when taken in the forenoon. When the latter is the case
however, the individual will as a rule become sleepy during the
afternoon, or else at an earlier hour than usual in the evening, and
sleep more soundly during the night. This is the effect of one bath. A
series of baths will however produce more or less marked and permanent
improvement in the sleep of individuals, where this has been below the
normal standard. And this is among the most invariable of the effects of
the electric bath, whether galvanic or faradic.

I have formed a theory as to the _rationale_ of this influence, which I
will offer as its probable explanation. We all know that sleep is a
process designed by nature for the recuperation of the system after a
certain period of activity. In other words, when the various functions
have been more or less exercised for their daily allotted time--say
seventeen hours--the respective organs need that profound rest which we
know as sleep. Now, it is pretty well conceded by physiologists, that
electricity stimulates th