s violent returns of regular gout, and is now near 80 years
of age.

When Dr. Franklin, the American philosopher, was in England many years ago,
I recommended to him the use of a warm-bath twice a week to prevent the too
speedy access of old age, which he then thought that he felt the approach
of, and I have been informed, that he continued the use of it till near his
death, which was at an advanced age.

All these patients were advised not to keep themselves warmer than their
usual habits, after they came out of the bath, whether they went into bed
or not; as the design was not to promote perspiration, which weakens all
constitutions, and seldom is of service to any. Thus a flannel shirt,
particularly if it be worn in warm weather, occasions weakness by
stimulating the skin by its points into too great action, and producing
heat in consequence; and occasions emaciation by increasing the discharge
of perspirable matter; and in both these respects differs from the effect
of warm bathing, which communicates heat to the system at the same time
that it stimulates it, and causes absorption more than exhalation.

2. The effect of the passage of an electric shock through a paralytic limb
in causing it to contract, besides the late experiments of Galvani and
Volta on frogs, intitle it to be classed amongst universal stimulants.
Electric shocks frequently repeated daily for a week or two remove
chronical pains, as the pleurodyne chronica, Class I. 2. 4. 14. and other
chronic pains, which are termed rheumatic, probably by promoting the
absorption of some extravasated material. Scrophulous tumours are sometimes
absorbed, and sometimes brought to suppurate by passing electric shocks
through them daily for two or three weeks.

[Illustration]

Miss ----, a young lady about eight years of age, had a swelling about the
size of a pigeon's egg on her neck a little below her ear, which long
continued in an indolent state. Thirty or forty small electric shocks were
passed through it once or twice a day for two or three weeks, and it then
suppurated and healed without difficulty. For this operation the coated jar
of the electric machine had on its top an electrometer, which measured the
shocks by the approach of a brass knob, which communicated with the
external coating to another, which communicated with the internal one, and
their distance was adjusted by a screw. So that the shocks were so small as
not to alarm the child, and the acc