Henry Lake

“ Although we are not continually made sensible of it, men and women are electrical machines. The researches of Matteucci, Dubois-Reymond, Rutter, and Faraday, prove that there exists, both in the muscles and nerves of human beings and all animals, a natural electricity, independent of mechanical, physical, or chemical actions, exterior or interior; that this electricity is manifested under the form of closed currents circulating along the muscles or nerves; that the presence of this free electricity is subordinate to the state of the life of the animal, and disappears with the vital force ”

“ May we not hope, then, the time has come when not only the scientific medical man, but every practitioner, will look for himself into the curative powers of electricity?
Every thing that is good, however, in the present day is sure to have a host of empirical imitators, and the inventions of which we have spoken are no exception to this rule. ”

“ It was suggested, in 1850, by the writer of this article, that the proximate cause of cholera might be found in the rapid passage of electricity from the human frame; the peculiarity of the atmosphere, known to exist during cholera, favoring the passage of that which is the life itself to the human system. ”

“ And he thus sums up his opinion of the medical profession, and their opposition to the use of electricity in disease: "There cannot be in Nature any such thing as an absolute panacea, a medicine that will cure every disease incident to the human body. If there could, electricity would bid fairer for it than any thing in the world. ”

“ But, when clouds arise from the ocean and come inland, they are mostly highly charged with electricity, and, being naturally anxious to give up the good things they possess, when they meet clouds not so much electrified, they hand over their surplus commodity, and the deliverance makes the earth and all created things in the neighborhood tremble. Or, if clouds arise from fresh waters, or from land not having much electric fire, the sun himself warms them up in a friendly manner ”

“ A popular writer has well said: "If London could be lit, like the city in the fairy tale, with a single diamond, which rendered it brighter at mid-night than at mid-day, it would take ten years to smoothe away prejudices and conciliate self-interests, so as to admit of the illuminating gem being displayed." ”

“ Two conditions of the human body are also illustrative of its varied electrical action. A person who has the small-pox cannot be electrified, while sparks of electricity may be drawn from the body of a patient dying of cholera. ”

“ Frictional electricity has been compared to the high-pressure steam of a locomotive, and voltaic electricity to the steam rising quietly from an open boiler. The chemical action of frictional electricity is very feeble; it has great intensity but little quantity; while the voltaic pile will yield an enormous quantity of electricity but with feeble intensity. ”

“ In the first instance, it appears that the body is fully charged with its own electricity, since it is impossible to electrify a body beyond a certain degree; in the latter, there seems to be a tendency to part with the electrical force which is essential to the support of life, and which may account for the distressing and rapid weakness of cholera patients.
We have hitherto spoken only of electricity of very high tension, which produces the lightning-spark ”

“ Here, then, we have an electric source divested of all machinery and complication, which could be carried in a cigar-case, and which can be made to furnish both the interrupted and the continuous current in large quantities. It can be set in action by the simplest means—merely a little vinegar and a little water; and it can be applied not only, as in the old mode, to the extremities, but so as to surround the body of the patient. ”

“ And then they weep together over the kindly exchange, though their tears do sometimes swell the rivers and produce a number of catastrophes not originally in the programme, as at Manchester and throughout Yorkshire this season; and their friendly distribution of fire sometimes fails to reach the intended cloud, and strikes down towers, churches, trees, and houses, and occasionally destroys a human body not possessed of its proper quantity of electricity. ”

“ Therefore, without waiting for what probably never will be, and what indeed we have no reason to expect, let men of sense do the best they can for themselves, as well as for their poor sick helpless neighbors. ”

“ The great advantage of electrical action is, that it brings relief in a large number of diseases confessedly beyond the reach of the ordinary remedies of the physician. How powerless, for instance, is ordinary medical skill in tic-douloureux! ”

“ All the astonishing cures in the early period of electricity were effected by clumsy and importable machinery, with "shocks" of high-tension current, which are peculiarly disagreeable to some persons. They are indeed like the actual cautery—the hot iron to the wound—when compared with the modern appliances of chain batteries and bands, whose action is so tender that a baby would not wince at it, and which are so portable that the whole apparatus may be carried in the pocket. It has fallen to the man of science, and. ”

“ Or, see the tears rolling down the cheeks of that pretty girl, whose ideas of love and romance and sentiment are scared away by the wearing pain of neuralgia; or, racking with the pain of gout and rheumatism, the man of middle age passes his restless nights, gaining temporary respite from pain by colchicum, or a fitful repose from morphine, and buying present ease at the cost of an unhappy and painful old age. ”

“ He continued his observations, and on the 9th the machine at the least touch rendered with facility most lively sparks. It is remarkable that, in the six days following the 8th of June, the mortality in Paris fell regularly from 667 to 355. It is now only about 150 years since electricity was discovered, not more than 120 since the discovery of the Leyden jar enabled electricians to concentrate the vital fluid. ”

“ Lovett is of opinion that the electrical method of treating disorders cannot be expected to arrive at any considerable degree of perfection till administered and applied by the gentlemen of the faculty. ”

“ It is certain nothing is so likely, by accelerating the contained fluids, to dilate and open the passages, as well as divide the coagulated particles of blood, that so the circulation may be again performed. ”