t_.

Most striking among the tonic influences of the baths, are those that
occur within the sphere of the digestive and sexual apparatuses. I will
first consider the effects on

THE DIGESTIVE APPARATUS,

which may be subdivided into those on _a_) the appetite, _b_) digestion,
absorption and assimilation, and _c_) alvine excretion. The improvement
of the appetite under electro-balneological treatment is one of the most
constant effects of this. While a series of baths will produce permanent
results in this respect, an increase of the appetite, in some instances
amounting to positive hunger, is a tolerably uniform and more or less
immediate result of each separate bath. The permanent improvement of the
appetite is relative. Not very appreciable where this is normal, it
becomes most marked where the appetite has from some cause been
impaired. The effect on the appetite is _definite_. The effects on
absorption and assimilation are _presumptive_; but when we couple the
absence of any corresponding difficulty in digesting the increased
supply of food, with the increase before alluded to in the weight of the
body, their assumption becomes fully justifiable. It is these combined
influences that make the electric bath so valuable a remedy in almost
all forms of dyspepsia.

The influence on the alvine process is if anything even more marked than
that on the assimilative process. Where the action of the bowels is
normal, it is not modified permanently by the electric bath, although we
often have, as an immediate consequence, a cathartic effect that
manifests itself as a more or less watery evacuation, either a few hours
after the bath or on the succeeding day. Where the fecal process however
is sluggish, the improvement resulting from the baths is very striking.
I shall recur more fully to this subject under the head of constipation.

The effects on the various functions connected with digestion are due
doubtless to the combined influences of stimulation of the secretions of
the alimentary canal and stimulation of the muscular coats of the
stomach and intestines, as well as permanent tonization of the
_muscularis_. While the enhancement of the secretions is undoubtedly due
chiefly to the electric stimulus to the secreto-motor nerves, and the
increased activity of the muscular coats to a like influence transmitted
to their motor nerves, I believe the permanent tonization and
invigoration of the muscula