patients fairly bloomed up under their influence and
acquired actually more physical strength and weighed more than before
they became sick. When we consider how in such conditions as those
mentioned, patients are made to swallow pills and mixtures for months or
years, or, more appropriately, and if they can afford it, are sent
abroad, we can realize the importance of an agent by means of which the
desired end can be obtained more conveniently, certainly, economically
and in a shorter time than by any other means. There is no rule without
its exceptions, and I freely admit that in many instances where persons
are, as the saying is, "run down," a sojourn in some mountainous region
or a course of sea-bathing, etc., would do them more good than anything
else, electric baths included. The results obtained from these last are
however sufficiently uniform to justify us in looking for very favorable
results in every case.

In the preceding chapter I have already dwelt on the

HYPNOTIC AND SEDATIVE INFLUENCE

of the baths. It is only necessary to state here that this influence
manifests itself still more decidedly in corresponding morbid conditions
than in health. The greater the degree of restlessness, irritability or
wakefulness, the more strikingly does the soothing and hypnotic
influence of the baths--appropriately administered, of course--become
apparent.

IMPROVEMENT OF NUTRITION,

as manifested by rapid increase of weight, and which I have likewise
touched upon in the preceding chapter, is a reliable, constant effect of
electric baths. Where previous loss of weight is due to an incurable
organic disease, it is, if at all obtained, of course much less in
degree, as well as transient. When due, however, as is frequently the
case, to causes that are amenable to electrical influence, the increase
in weight is marked, and has a tendency to be permanent.

It will be seen that the few therapeutic effects which I have here
enumerated, are in reality nothing more than intensified physiological
effects, there being about them nothing that might be termed specific.
It may be asked in reply: why then did I devote any space to them at
all? I will answer that I thought best to point out some general
therapeutic USES for which electric baths may be made available, and the
indications for which are furnished by so great a number of pathological
conditions, that omitting special refer