Van Deusen/Kosinski Collection


This specific I immediately advertised in a paper printed at Schenectady; but the doctors in the adjacent towns, either never saw it or did not pay any attention to it. But I was informed that Dr. Lyon, near Lebanon pool, accidentally came across one of the papers, and having a machine, immediately tried the experiment (for the same disease prevailed there at that time) and had the pleasure of finding it to be no mistake; for he lost not another patient, but directly cured every one taken with the disease; who, notwithstanding, lost many before he made use of electricity.

These specimens of the inestimable benefit of electricity in a dysentery, may suffice to evince the propriety of using it in all the like cases. I have never known it to fail of making a cure in any one single instance.

My method hath ever been to pass the shocks from about the navel to the back, a little descendingly; sometimes I have given twenty, and sometimes thirty or forty very light shocks in the same direction at one time. The effects that were apparent, have alwasy been uniformly the same in the bloody flux, viz. they would purge directly, and carry off an enormous quantity of blood in the first stool; but the appearance of blood will be less and less every stool, till all appearance thereof totally subsides. The electrification may be repeated twice or thirce a day; but then the number of shocks in one day ought not to exceed forty or fifty, in any case that I have seen; and these shocks must be so light, that if a well man should take them through his arms, he would not feel them higher than his wrists. Such a degree of the shock, is what I mean to have understood to be a very light, or a gentle electrification. I have mentioned it in this place, because it is of the last importance that it be carefully attended to in this disease: and the more so, if the patient is much exhausted, or in the last stages of the disease, approaching near to death.

Through good fortune, I did not lose any by their taking cold, but it very much endangered some of their lives; wherefore I must enforce the injunction in this place; be very careful of the least degree of coolness. Observe, I do not say cold; that point would be fatal; but if you feel cool in the least degree, you are wounded.

This is the only inconvenience to be regretted, in the using of medical electricity. The blood is attenuated by the shock, and thrown strongly upon the surface, the pores are expanded, and there is no resistance to a cold from the least external coolness. The external temperature ought to be on a parallel degree of warmth with the blood in the vessels, or nearly that. But in five, six or eight days after the shocks are desisted, the pores will begin to astringe, and by degrees resist the approach of cold as before. When a disease is removed,

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FULL TABLE OF CONTENTS
1 Title page
2 Preface
13 Animal and Vegetable Electricity
15 Chapter 1 - Electric fire promotes the vegetable life, etc.
70 Chapter 2 - Of the Conductors
   97 Chapter 3 - Fever  [Medical Conditions]
108 Peripneumony 171 Cholic 210 Involuntary motion
      of the eyelids
111 Pleurisy 174 Asthma 210 Hemmorage
114 St. Anthony's Fire 176 Diabetes 217 Hemorroids
115 Inflammatory Rheumatism 178 Urine suppressed,
  bloody and hot
217 Ulcers and Abcesses
115 Inflammatory Sore Throat 182 Menses obstructed 220 Rickets
122 Madness 185 King's Evil 221 Locked Jaw or Joints
131 Ague 186 Cancers 224 Bruises
138 St. Vitus's Dance 194 Quincy 229 Nerves contracted
140 Hysterics 195 Head-ache 230 Sprain or Strain
144 Epilepsy 196 Deafness 231 Felon or Whitlow
149 Consumption 197 Inflammatory Eyes 231 Pains in different parts
153 Palsy 197 Film 232 Wounds, etc.
158 Dropsy 199 Gutta Serena 234 Drowning
164 Gout 207 Cataract 237 Suppressed Perspiration
166 Dysentery 209 Fistula Lachrymalis 237 Burns and Scalds
242 Chapter 4  [Equipment]
277 Thoughts on the Times
INDEX
Electricity, or Ethereal Fire, Considered is presented here for historical purposes only, and should not be interpreted as medical advice.





        
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