mployed. The strongest that I have used, and on which I
base my statement, was that from 48 Stoehrer or 60 Hill cells. As
stronger currents are not required for therapeutic purposes, what I have
asserted remains practically true as applied within these limits.

This absence of pain, which cannot be claimed for correspondingly
intense local applications, is to be attributed to the _diffusion_ of
the current throughout the body and its surface, as well as through the
water of the bath. The redness of the _entire_ back after a galvanic
bath, is among the proofs of this diffusion.

Freedom from pain is a characteristic likewise of the faradic bath,
_properly administered_. When too strong a faradic current however is
incautiously administered, the resulting muscular contractions are
accompanied by an amount of local pain proportioned to the violence of
the contractions. By keeping the faradic current within proper limits,
all pain can be avoided.

With respect to

MUSCULAR CONTRACTIONS,

the effects of the electric bath may be distinguished from those
obtained by other modes of faradization by their comprehensiveness.
Many groups of muscles may be made simultaneously to contract by this
means. The practical bearing of this on the therapeutics of _pareses_
and _paralyses_, renders it an important characteristic of the bath.

The physiological effects on

THE MIND

of electric baths, is a natural result of the enhanced tone and vigor of
the physical system, and keeps pace with this. Mental buoyancy and even
exhilaration are among the most common sequences of electric baths.
Although indirect, these results are none the less decided.

It has been my aim in the foregoing remarks to give the reader, as
concisely as possible and within the limits which I set for myself in
the beginning of the present chapter, a summary of the more important
physiological effects of electric baths. As the isolated results of
observations made in a limited field by one unaided individual, I trust
the shortcomings of this chapter will be viewed indulgently. If what I
have said of the physiological effects of electric baths proves the
means of stimulating to further investigation more competent observers
than myself, my labor, whatever its imperfections, will not have been in
vain.

Footnotes:

[Footnote 4: Dr. Franz Hartmann; "Der acute and chronische
Gelenkrheuma