Medical electricity. A manual for students. Showing its most scientific and rational application to all forms of acute and chronic disease, by the different combinations of electricity, galvanism, electro-magnetism, magneto-electricity, and human magnetism

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TRANSFERRED TO YALE MEDICAL LIBRARY

MEDICAL ELECTRICITY.

CHAPTER I. Primal Condition of Matter, and Progress of Creation up to Man 9

CHAPTEB H.

Man's Continued Progress as a Physical and Spiritual Being, Physiologically, Chemically, and Electrically considered 15

CHAPTER EX Harmonious Growth of the Physical, Mental, and Spiritual, necessary for the Health of Man 23

CHAPTER rV.

Mind — its Influence over Man in all his Relations 27

CHAPTER V.

Conditions of Health and Disease 33

VI TABLE OF CONTENTS.

CHAPTER VI.

Curative Agents 41

CHAPTER VH.

Philosophy of Treating Disease 47

CHAPTER VUL Electrical Apparatus 60

CHAPTER IX.

Electrical Diagnosis and Medication 71

CHAPTER X.

Treatment 78

P. C. denotes the primary current ; S. C. secondary current. Primary current, galvanic current, and chemical current, all relate to the galvanic current of the Battery, or the primary of the Electro-Magnetic apparatus, and are all of the same nature ; while the secondary current, induced current, and Faradaic current, all relate to that which is obtained from the secondary coil or fine wire heBx.

PEEFAOE.

IN response to the urgent solicitations of many of our students and professional friends, and for the benefit of those who may hereafter enter upon this branch of study, the present work has been written ; believing that it will supply a want long felt, and answer both as a guide to successful practice, and a source of instruction to all who may give it a careful perusal.

This work is not designed to supersede the necessity of the perusal of other works on this comparatively new and important branch of the healing art ; for much has already been written on this most deeply interesting department of medical science, by men of the greatest eminence, both at home and abroad.

Having had many years' experience in regular practice, and a good opportunity to test the effects of drug medication alone, and being many times disappointed in the effects of medical agents, we kuow how to appreciate the value of an agent, which has, in hundreds of instances, enabled us to cure diseases when all our other medical resources had failed, during the past fifteen years of our medical use of this wonderful

8 PKEFACE.

agent. Yet we do not wish to be understood as discarding all kinds of drug medication, but would use every means within the bounds of human knowledge, whose known virtues would relieve suffering and cure disease, — human magnetism included. For we know it to be a law of electrical action, that the two electrical polarities are constantly seeking an equilibrium, and that the unbalanced electrical polarities in the human organism constitute disease, while a perfectly balanced or normal condition constitutes health. And one would suppose that this fact alone would be sufficient to convince the medical world, that whatever enables us to restore this harmony is an aid to nature, and a sure means for the restoration of health, and a blessing to humanity.

In presenting this work to our readers, it is not our design to follow the exact footsteps of famed predecessors, or to walk in the hard-beaten paths of former practitioners, but to grasp, so far as the human mind can comprehend the broad platform of truth, keeping for that purpose a mind open to truth wherever found, trusting that no one will try to believe the teachings of the finite mind absolute and final. We shall, then, try only to give our conception of the great and grand principles which govern human life in its operations, drawing freely for proof from all the sources to which we have, or can have, access.

MEDICAL ELECTRICITY.

MANUAL FOR STUDENT'S

CHAPTEE I.

PEIMAL CONDITION OP MATTER, AND PEOGEESS OF CREATION UP TO MAN.

LIFE, as a study, taking it from the lowest forms of organized matter to the highest known form, is one of the grandest themes in which man can be engaged.

"We watch for its first development, and find it here shown in the gaseous substances of which the earth was first formed, a certain grand law governing and arranging the gases even then.

These little forms of matter (for even then they were composed of material) seemed to have been moved upon and worked over by an interior bfe, and to have had an acting, governing principle pervading each particle, a life and principle which we trace through all forms up to man.

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Geologists tell us that they have now little doubt that this earth was first composed of nebulous matter. Astronomers agree with them in this opinion. They recognize also a law arranging and forming by degrees this nebulous mass into a globular form ; then a chemical action taking place, and, by electrical laws, bringing together like elements, until the whole mass became one ball of fire. Indefinite periods seem to have passed, and still this burning condition existed ; then came a time of change, — a time when these laws acting must necessarily produce change ; and over and around this liquid ball of fire a crust was formed.

How slow the work ! Nature seems never to have been in haste, but to have claimed all time for this grand work of life.

She seems to have kept this one great thought ever uppermost, and to have felt that she could afford to await its development.

We can find n,o form of life fitted for this age except the interior life, which still labored and produced one change after another, until, as age succeeded age, oceans were born, and then gross forms " to inhabit their slimy beds and crawl along their muddy shores." Through all this work of outgrowing life, we trace the same laws that first started vital existence. No labor seemed too ponderous for the controlling intelligence in accomplishing the one great object even then foreshadowed. One form of existence after another passed through its stage of usefulness, and then gave place to a still higher ; and yet the work went on. Each period of time exhibited some new species of life, — some more refiued outgrowth of the original chemical laws and primates, and at last presenting mankind. Man's life at first presents a curious study, so far as we can gain a knowledge of it. Little more than the common instincts which characterize animals seem to have been his. Yet he was more than they ; for he combined with all they had, some peculiar forms of being which they possessed not. Nature's experiments never failed : she had commenced his life in the lowest life ; and she had carried that particular part of her work through all, perfecting it more and more as she developed higher and higher beings; adding each time some new feature that should show her progress. In some of the lowest, which were fish, she had commenced the spinal column, that by and by was to bear erect man's head, with its lofty intellect, and power of reason. Again, in another, she shaped the internal ear, which now adds so much to his pleasure. How diligently she labored ; for, as one part after another was formed, she gathered them together in some new expression, with ever something new added. Not only do we trace the work in the animal kingdom, but away back through the vegetable and mineral.

She had commenced her work by chemical and electrical laws, putting together certain chemical properties to produce certain effects, and governing them by the electrical laws of polarity. Never once did she mistake her method or its result; but each trial brought something beyond the preceding. Man's development was slow, and yet how certain. The first we know of him may be comparatively little, yet that little is enough to show us how much superior the human was to all Nature's previous works.

Instead of going quietly about, grazing, as did the animals around him, he seemed even at that early day to have felt the prophecy of the future of his race ; and he sought rude pleasures, and what to him was employment. As before, each new period had added something new in the form of life ; so now each generation gave a higher outgrowth to man. His pleasures took a more refined form, as did his whole being, — hardly perceptible at first, 'tis true ; but, nevertheless, real. Like the animal, his instincts seemed to govern him ; but, as generations succeeded, reason dawned upon him, and he began to see the use of objects around him. So limited seemed to be this dawn of reason, that his view of the use of all things was very narrow ; but then, as now, he appropriated them for the highest uses in his power. How much was he like his good mother Earth ! No rest for him or her, but ever an outgrowing life with both ; so, as time passed, he sought higher forms through which to express this life, and a larger field than before for investigating uses. Like his mother, he tried various experiments ; but, unlike the never-failing accomplishment of her purposes, as controlled by infinite intelligence, he failed often before his finite mind could grasp the knowledge sought. We see that it was only step by step, taken often unawares, that he gained power over the elements below him, and could feel himself lifted still higher. Faintly glimmering through his mind came thoughts of many things ; and he labored to outwork them : he wished to know why certain plants grew, if not for his benefit ; and why certain organs of his body were given, if not for his pleasure ; so he ate and drank, and tried still further his experiments, until he found diseases come upon him.

How he struggled on ! but this was only the effect of his outgrowing life, the same as the pent forces in the bosom of his mother Earth ; and he had only gained another step, as she gains her progress by belching her pent-up forces from the volcano's top. Why should he stop discouraged, so long as her example bade him hope for great results ? It was not his nature : still, like her, he must try another and still another thought. No end, no rest, but in change ; and that brought true rest. Perhaps we have no right to say that even the diseases he wrought out were not steps of progress. All history, from the primeval records impressed upon the rocks of his early time, shows that he was ignorant of many things ; and this unrest brought him in time much experimental knowledge. He began instinctively to seek some cure for the ills he felt ; and the childlike feeling of awe and wonder (so natural to the ignorant) was the prevailing feeling with which he made use of the healing agents he sought. Incantations and charms, recited over the sick, expressed this feeling. Man's life to-day exhibits the same feeling in a less degree, simply through his ignorance of the laws of life. Yet how much more in comparison does he know to-day than in the past ? He grasps at some natural law of use, and is wonder-struck at the result gained ; but he is scarcely yet prepared with knowledge and wisdom enough to let this law provide him with a key to greater treasures of light. His out-growing life is only just beginning to realize the power it possesses : his growth is step by step as of old, one degree after another passed, and a finer being the result. Let the lesson come home to each soul, and so our reason remain unprejudiced to read still of the future.

CHAPTEE II.

man's continued progress as a physical and spiritual being, physiologically, chemically, and electricaiay considered.

WE have taken a somewhat general view of man's first condition as an active creature of the early ages, and traced, as man, his relation to Nature, and all the grand laws that govern her. Now it becomes a duty to trace man as a physiological being, and still further, and more minutely, his likeness to all around him, proving, so far as we can, the ground taken.

We have seen the earth first a nebuloiis mass, arranged into spherical form by grand laws of electrical attraction and repulsion. So, after the copulation of the parents, we find the almost nebulous spermatozoa by the same fixed laws in the ovum, forming at first one cell, then many, until they beyin to develop the new being. Some physiologists tell us of the rapid motion of these cells as they come together ; and we mark there a likeness to our mother Earth : she, too, had motion, rapidly and constantly turning ; and here she showed to her children one grand law of all life — the peculiar effect the mother has over her child before its birth. Her great unrest, her struggles for still higher outgrowths, come to her children as a part of their heritage. We find that the Earth soon began to develope her different structures from the chemical primates she possessed, as the gases — oxygen, hydrogen, carbon, and nitrogen ; and the materials combined with these, forming silicon, aluminum, calcium, magnesium, iron, potassium, sodium, and sulphur. Combining these gases and metals together, she makes numberless specimens of beauty and use. So, again, we find this spherical mass of cells in the embryotic human being commencing, as did its mother Earth, to collect from all around it in the womb (the boundary of its universe) these elements for its growth: sulphur for the albumen, fibrine, caseine, gelatine, &c. ; phosphorus, with albumen and fibrine for the brain : silicon for the urine, bones, and hair; sodium, potassium, ammonium, in combination with chlorine, for all the fluids as well as solids of the body ; calcium for the earthy salts ; magnesium for the muscles ; and iron for the blood.

The interior life of nature is ever working outward through all these elements ; so in the embryo we see first what in the future is to do the work of man, as the first visible formation, viz., the brain and spinal marrow. After the soul-principle has collected the elements with which to form these (and we can see this in all life), we find that it still goes on, like Earth, to form now the grosser parts of its temple. Dr. Hollick calls the principle which it first uses to work with "a species of attraction ;" but he, after a time, loses sight of this, and is lost in wonder as he tries to find some philosophical reason for its continued development. To us it seems that wonder may very easily be turned to a delightful knowledge. If we still contimie to trace nature here, we are told (and we have every reason to believe it true, for the thought brings its own conviction of truth) that Nature uses only the same great laws through all her physical growths, " that she knows no great, no small." Why should we not feel this a truth? We already see the same chemical elements combined with his form as hers. Chemical and electrical laws govern her growth : they must govern the growth of this, her child. Then, as they control and collect matter from the boundless realm of elements for her, so likewise do they for him ; and, as they control all her actions immediately, so do they his. This, then, accounts for his onward progress in this stage of life. Chemistry controls the combining of the elements transmitted through the mother's tissues to the uterus ; and the soul-germ through these refined electrical laws places them where they belong, and so builds its own machine, or, rather, earthly home.

18 MEDICAL ELECTEICITT.

After building the framework, like a perfect mechanic as it is, it proceeds to develop other parts; and here again we note, in almost every instance, the perfect imitation of the life-course of mother Earth. It repeats the same experiments that she has tried, and adds one new feature after another ; the whole occupying some nine months of time, instead of ages upon ages.

After she has so refined the elements that the soul-life can express itself in human form, her labors seem easier, but still grand and beautiful !

How foolish the thought to estimate all below man as Nature's great work, manifesting the controlling influence of her laws, and then admitting him to be her last grand achievement, the epitome of all the rest, to profess to see reasons why from the first he should be exempt from these laws. The thought breathes neither of reason nor philosophy, but of confusion — chaos of mind.

True it is, that man is above all, because he possesses mind, the avenue of his soul-life, as a crown above all other life existences : yet that alone can come under different laws ; he is still acted upon by the same physical laws. At the ninth month we find him physiologically fitted for a more active life ; and even then we see a beautiful work. His life goes on by slow progression to manhood ; and he stands before us a physical framework of some two hundred and eleven bones, covered by some five hundred muscles, containing many organs of wonderful use and beauty, all the dwelling-place of this interior life. Religionists have told us for centuries of this life, and that it controls all the physical parts of man, but how or why they have failed to inform us ; and physiologists seem to feel it beyond their province to mention the fact that there is a life within. They only go to work to try and explain the physical, forgetting that in every act they must make use of this life, and that to separate the one from the other materially, brings death or dissolution ; and that the same law holds good as they deal with it mentally. They forget that the great facts with which they deal are but the real outgrowths of this interior life ; and it leaves thern sadly behind the times, for to them many physiological phenomena are unaccountable, mysterious, and wonderful. We are very glad to know that under this framework, or within it, are the brain, the eye with its nerves, the ear, the mouth, the lungs, the heart, the stomach, the liver, spleen, pancreas, intestines, and the organs which distinguish the male from the female ; all this they tell us, explaining their different functions; but we want to know more. These stand as bare facts, unclothed and uninhabited by the interior life which makes man what he is.

Much of this knowledge can be gained alone from the physical expressions around him ; but there is a deeper need — a need for man to know of the controlling power within him. That this need is real, we shall try to show as we proceed. After his birth into the outer world, we find, from physiological facts, that life is still sustained from all around him, but not alone by the physical act of eating and drinking. His soul-principle is drawing in from all the beauty and grandeur of the earth about it, being fed by the soul-life of earth. Now, the question arises, whence this life, what its object, and why should we wish to know of it ? If we again take a look backward at the past ages of our earth's existence, we note great order, — everything done in time, and all things seeming to grow from a life within ; for chemical analysis shows us that we can resolve many things into chemical primates, and then re-organize them again, but that we can never give the life-portion or soul-principle back after we have set it free by our analysis. Again, in tracing this interior-life which as before we find in everything up to man, we see that some formations have more of it than others. This is a subject of deep importance, as we will now try to show ; for upon our understanding of it depends much of life's happiness. Everything was made by God, and man in his own image, says the record of the past ; and " into his nostrils God breathed the breath of life." Now, we know, that when this principle of life is gone from a plant of any kind, chemical decomposition takes place, and the particles are taken by some other existence to feed it. So in the animal ; showing clearly a power within, that, with our physical science, we cannot grasp.

When man and woman come together for the purpose of becoming parents, they then draw from the combined amount of this soul-life (which we call God) gathered and possessed by them, and it is transmitted to the child. It thus becomes a nucleus, to which is attracted from its surroundings (as we have endeavored to show) through the mother's life, everything necessary to build up the external form of the child. Life — all life — depends upon laws grand and beautiful. Let us not forget this: the physical laws are {must be) identical that control all physical growth, since all physical matter is of the same character ; and so with the spiritual or soul of all things. We can see them expanded, as we go from the lower to the higher, yet trace them the same.

To show the importance of this seeming digression, — upon this subject so little considered by physiologists, so little cared for by most people, — we have noted in the vegetable world, that, by the action of certain laws which we call physical alone, malformations are produced, and abortive attempts at the perfect tree or flower. Again, let us take other vegetables of the same kind, and choose from among them the best, most refined, and those whose interior life is best expressed in the outer growth : the result is perfection of the tree or plant. In the animal, the same law holds good, as all admit. Now, let us carry this law to the human, and apply it by the aid of human reason, and what is the result ? — man harmonious, having less of disease, more of manhood, and a larger development of the God-principle within. Think of it ye whose province it is to heal the people and become teachers. Kecognizing this principle in all things, the parents will partake largely of it in their own natures, and will take larger views of life's import, and give these thoughts to their children. They will implant in the physical germ a larger breath than others, who connect the thought of human propagation with physical pleasure alone. We have noted the effects of unfavorable conditions upon the physical growth of plants, trees, and animals, in preventing the perfect expression of the interior life. Now carry this thought upward to the human kingdom. The lower orders seem to be stinted in physical development : they look meanly to the eye of one whose aspiration is for ideal beauty. There is an excessive preponderance of the merely animal propensities, deplorable to look upon. In many instances, there is not enough interior life to give energy to these overgrown material bodies. This lack of soul-life, manifested in so many forms, though sorrowful to consider, yet affords great lessons of usefulness to the thoughtful, and subjects for the study of those who now wholly ignore this soul-philosophy.

Chapter III

HARMONIOUS GROWTH OP THE PHYSICAL AND SPIRIT- UAL NECESSARY FOR THE HEALTH OF MAN.

THE harmonious growth of both physical and spiritual elements seems to be necessary for the health of man. Let us look at this once more. If the interior or spiritual is the motive or life -power of all forms of existence (and this seems to be self-evident from the fact that when this is withdrawn from any form, decomposition and death are the result), then there are certain physical laws which its continuance with us render necessary. Many to-day realize that electrical laws control many of the phenomena of nature ; but that this law of electricity is subject to many modifications, we who understand aught of its mechanical use cannot doubt ; aud if we reason naturally, unrestrainedly, we shall feel that it really is the modification of some electrical law which the soul within uses for its expressive growth without.

We plant the seed in the mold. The active life within acts upon the electrical moisture drawn, or negatively absorbed within it from the mold : soon it becomes so charged with this moisture, that its

24 MEDICAL ELECTKICITY.

life-principle becomes positive to the properties around it ; and it starts outward and upward, repelled by similar positive conditions. At the same time it becomes polarized at the germ-centre ; and tben start the roots, which are positive to the mold, and repelled by the upper life. Thus harmoniously is one drawn by the earth, and the other part by the air. So we traced somewhat tbe modification of this law in the growth of the embryo. Now, we ask, does not this same law, expressing this same life-principle, sustain the plant? If not, what does ? If blind chance alone feeds it, why does it not make some mistake? Soul-life, controlling the electrical law peculiar to its formation, attracts the right properties always at the proper time, and to tbe right place. Physiologists tell us of the elective powers possessed by the human system ; but they scorn tbe idea that electrical law controls the organs within the human body : but let us see. They inform us that the food we eat, after being incorporated with the saliva of the mouth, and passing to the stomach, undergoes chemical cbanges ; and tbat after passing to tbe duodenum, or second stomach, it is acted upon by bile from the liver, as in the first by the gastric juice. It is then taken to that portion of the intestines- where tbe lacteals convey it to the thoracic duct, whence it is carried to the heart as impure blood. After being passed through the heart to the lungs, and acted upon by the atmosphere, it is changed to bright arterial blood, and carried to every part of the system. When pure, the elective qualities of the different organs enable them to select such chemical qualities as they need for their sustenance, conveying away at the same time those elements which they no longer need. Now, why admit that chemistry has aught to do with us? Simply because the fact is becoming too self-evident to be longer denied. We very well know that every chemical analysis exhibits electrical laws ; how, then, can we separate the action of one law from the other ? All our food becomes subject to chemical analysis as it passes from one department to another ; and we must, if we stop to reason at all, know that wherever these chemical laws are acting, there electrical laws are also acting in unison ; and we think, when the matter is sufficiently studied, it will be found that upon these physical laws of chemistry and electricity, governed by the soul-life, human growth depends from the first. But, says one, you would not convey the idea that our bodies are subjected to the same element that is so fearful in the thunder-storm ? Why : we cannot make the same experiments with it that we do with mechanical electricity. Very true : we cannot. But do not let us forget that it is modified and refined very much ere it reaches us ; and, when we come to partake of it, it must be fitted for our growth, and changed to meet our wauts. Remember that

Nature, in her distribution of laws, knows no great, no small ; and, again, that we have not, with all our boasted scientific knowledge, yet fathomed the depths of truth, as the constant development of new facts and phenomena abundantly prove. If, then, we find chemical action constantly taking place in all the changes which food undergoes, from a solid material condition to its formation into pure blood, we shall also find electrical action, for one ever accompanies the other. The philosophy of Dr. Dodds, concerning the circulation, is thus discovered to be superior to any other conceived by physiologists ; for it comprehends more of truth, and satisfies the unprejudiced human reason better, than any before presented. If, then, our investigation of facts compels us to admit the truth of this philosophy, we can easily perceive the importance of this knowledge to us all. It enables us to make that which seemed mysterious before, clear " as the light of day ;" and it expands our thoughts by greater growth, enabling us to people the earth with more of soul-life, and less of the sensual.

Chapter IV. Mind, Its Influence Ovee Man In All His Kelattons

WE have considered man both as a physical being, and as possessing an interior or soul-life, which controls the physical organization by electrical law. There seems also to exist a connecting link, or medium, between the physical and spiritual. If this be in any degree wanting, the soul-life fails to manifest itself ; and yet we cannot distinctly draw the line of demarcation between this soul-life and the connecting element which we elsewhere know by its peculiar manifestations. "We refer to the element of mind, which, through the finer chemical laws, controls the brain of man. It requires wonderful, and seemingly almost miraculous, powers to go within ourselves, passing through the system intelligently, criticising and analyzing as we go ; so many laws do we discover, modifying and controlling each other.

We seem to draw this element of mind from the great Fountain of all being. Its source being Infinite, we do not as yet grasp it, but only the phenomena of its workings. It is, however, by studying the