Identifier: internationalsys00bige (find matches)
Title: An international system of electro-therapeutics : for students, general practitioners, and specialists
Year: 1894 (1890s)
Authors: Bigelow, Horatio R. (Horatio Ripley) Massey, George Betton, 1856-1927 Prince, Morton, 1854-1929 Jacobi, Mary Putnam, 1842-1906 Hayes, Plymmon Sandford, 1850-
Subjects: Electrotherapeutics Hysteria Uterus Electric Stimulation Therapy Uterus Hysteria
Publisher: Philadelphia : F. A. Davis London : F.J. Rebman
Contributing Library: Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine
Digitizing Sponsor: Open Knowledge Commons and Harvard Medical School

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0, and soon the new science began to terrify andastonish men. Everj^ fact as it was unfolded seemed spiritual andsupernatural. Flames of fire plajed around the electrical substances inthe dark ; sparks glittered ; sharp sensations, produced by the unknown * Becquerel, i, p. 32. Plutarch, Lysander, notices the luminous wonders. Miiller, Etrusker, iii, pp. 1, 2. Arnob, vii, p. 26. Genetrix et mater superstitionis Etruria. Becquerel, i, p. 35. A-190 BLEYER. agent, were felt by astonished operators; and a mysterious awe sur-rounded the birth of the wonderful principle. Men were almost inclined,like Tliales, to invest the electrical substance with a soul. An Englishman discovered electricity; a Prussian, in the land ofamber, invented the first electrical machine. Otto Guericke, of Mag-denburg, who also invented the air-pump, formed the instrument bywhich electricity could be most readily produced ; he placed a globe ofsulphur on an axle, to be turned by the hand of the operator, while with
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Fig. 3.—Electricity 150 Years ago. the other lie applied a cloth to the sulphur to produce the necessaryfriction. It was a rude, imperfect machine, but it was at once found tohave made a great revelation in the science. Electricity, which hadheretofore been known only in its feebler forms, was now given out insharp sparks, and displayed a thousand curious properties. Sometimesit attracted objects, at others repelled them. It seemed at times to exer-cise a kind of volition. The weather affected it sensibly ; dampness dis-solved its strength ; it was capable, too, of influencing bodies at a con-siderable distance, and was apparently independent of the usual laws of GALVANISM. A-191 space. Yet the seventeenth century glided away, with its fierce religiouswars and its wonderful voyages and settlements, while little progress wasmade in the knowledge of electricity. Newton paid no particular atten-tion to the new science. He suggested, however, that the electricalsubstance was a subtle et

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