ones lie near the surface, the periosteum--the
membrane immediately investing the bone--is apt to feel more sensibly
under the electrodes than the muscular parts. But these variations soon
become so familiar to the practitioner that he finds no difficulty in
making the proper allowances for them.

In making an electrical examination, the two following questions present
themselves to be answered: First, whether anywhere, and, if so, where is
there a morbid electrical state in the body of this patient? Second,
what is the electrical condition of that unhealthy part? Is it
_positive_ or _negative_?

These questions being answered, according to the tests just given, the
well-instructed practitioner is prepared to go on and treat the patient
judiciously, and with success, if success be attainable by any form of
medication.

Let me next say, It is best, as a general rule, to make examinations
with the _negative pole_. The reason of this is that, since the current
is always more energetic under the negative than under the positive
pole, it makes itself more sensibly _felt_ there than under the
positive pole. Indeed, it will commonly be felt even to _painfulness_
there, if the part were overcharged and inflamed before. Thus, under the
negative electrode, the current readily detects any active disease. But,
if we be making the examination with the _positive pole_, as we come
upon any point more or less inflamed, the current, quick as lightning,
rushes away from such inflamed part to the part under the stationary
negative pole, carrying with it, for the time being, more or less of
that excess of electro-vital fluid which was in force at the inflamed
point; so that _no pain_, perhaps, is experienced there; and thus the
disease escapes detection.

I am aware that it has been said by some of our practitioners, with, if
I rightly remember, the able discoverer of the grand practical
principles of our system, Prof. C. H. Bolles, at their head, that it is
not quite prudent to use the negative pole in hand for diagnosis, lest
we possibly contract the disease from the patient; since, in that case,
the current runs from the patient to the practitioner. They think it
safer to use the positive pole in hand; so letting the current run from
the practitioner to the patient. There is force in this consideration,
without doubt, where the patient is affected with a poisonous or
malignant disease. And where any thing of this nature is apprehend