Van Deusen/Kosinski Collection


any case. This case demands particular attention to a steady degree of warmth.

Urine suppressed - bloody and hot.

I have used the electrical shocks in all those different states or stages, and have known of no single instance of failure of immediate relief, or of relief in a few hours, and always terminated in a radical cure. The manner of passing the shocks has been from about midway of the spine, or back bone, to the inside of the thigh, so as to bring the shocks down the urinary passages. Some shocks may be passed through the lower belly to the back, about ten in each direction; and if the case is urgent, they may be repeated twice, and sometimes thrice, in one day.

Some European authors have recommended the shocks in the gravel; but this, I think, must have been a mistake, such as I have, in my first practicing in electricity, made myself. People have applied to me for assistance in the gravel, as they called it; but I have restored many such gravels by fifty or sixty light shocks, and might have had the reputation of working what would have been, to a man of skill, a miracle: but I immediately told my patients, in these cases, that it was no gravel, but a strangury, after I had once discovered my mistake; and such hath been the mistakes among those European electricians. Notwithstanding, I think it adviseable to electrify in a gravel, in order, at least, to prevent an increase thereof, and to suppress irritation and inflammation. Moreover, the shocks may be of further use; they may be necessary to pave the way for voiding the gravel from the bladder of urine, not only by removing irritation from the bladder ande urethra; but also, by expanding or dilating the urethra, the passage is rendered more capable of carrying off those dense bodies. But to suppose the shocks to act as a resolvent upon the gravel, is to me unaccountable; and I am determined to assert nothing for a fact, in this book, but what my senses have been witness to; what is but conjecture, I have explained as conjecture, offered my reasons, and submitted it to the judgment of mankind.

Although I cannot believe that the electric shocks act as a resolvent on a consistence so dense as these bodies are known to be; yet I am convinced, from very many instances of demonstration, that they are an infallible diuretic, as well as a diaphoretic. I know it is unaccountabole, yea, and laughable with some people, (who, by the way, are totally ignorant of the whole matter) that the same medicine should be represented as capable of producing contrary effects. I have prescribed the electric shocks for the diabetes, or an excessive evacuation of urine: - now I am recommending the same medicine as an excellent specific to restore a deficiency of urine. "We are not acquainted with such specifics, nor such contradictory prescriptions!" Very well; neither have you

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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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