being light, will be sufficient to propel off the morbid humours.
In electrifying for a cancer, as well as for a king's evil, it is best to pass many shocks through every part of the system, and thoroughly attenuate
the blood: keep the body continually warm, that the perspiration may not be interrupted, but that the humours may be cleansed, and the blood totally
clarified of the scrofula.
If the cancer is in or about the head, then the head must be warmly covered, and the face, so far as to keep it in a perspiration.
Do not dream of making a cure, unless these instructions are rigidly attended to.
Do not say, as many will, "I am not apt to take cold."
This has been the eternal disgrace of electricity, and will continue so to be, unless people can be persuaded to be all attention, to be
continually upon their guard, that not the least degree of coolness approaches them for a moment.
I have used electricity on several cancers: the first was on myself.
Suffering much pain, by various applications, and all to no good effect, I began to despair of a cure;
But, having observed the effect of the electric shocks upon other kinds of sores, after some reflection, I was determined to make the experiment on myself.
(This was about the first of my practice.)
Accordingly, I took fifty very light shocks, directly through the cancer; afterwards I took about twenty daily, mostly very light.
This I continued ten or twelve days:
Then I desisted as many more days; by which time I saw the cancer was nearly well; and I have not been troubled with it since, which is about eight years.
But this application was made in three or four months after it was discovered to be a cancer.
The second case was a young man from Albany, whose name has flipt my memory.
He called on me at Ballston pool.
He had what is called a spider, on his face, but a recent one:
its head was not larger than a pea; but it was evidently a cancer, from the symptoms of sympathy, which he said were like a stinging, darting from its seat round his face.
To be short, he was electrified a few times, and it totally disappeared, and every sensation of it.
The third was a lady, on a visit from the city of New-York, to her friends in Claverack.
Hers was of the former description, only about the size of a large bean, accompanied with the former symptoms; and was a cancer, in the judgment of different physicians,
who had seen it in New-York.
While she tarried, I electrified it three or four times, on different days; and it was almost reduced before she left the place.
I have electrified several others in an accidental manner; and the shocks always abated the irritation, smarting, and uncomfortable
sensations of the cancer: But not having an
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