Excerpt from Practical Introduction to Medical Electricity: With a Compendium of Electrical Treatment Translated From the French of Dr. Onimus
This little book is intended as a companion to the Medical battery. My only ambition in presenting it to medical students and practitioners is that it may justify its title, and be found a practical guide to electro-therapeutics, and a suitable introduction to the study of the larger treatises.
Though containing no new facts, nor original theories, a few words of explanation with regard to some points may not be unnecessary.
In the first chapter I endeavour to give a sketch of the main physical facts which have a direct bearing upon the application of electricity to the human body. Franklinism (static or frictional electricity) is not even mentioned, its use being now abandoned in electro-therapeutics. Galvanism and faradism, on the other hand, are treated of in a manner which may appear somewhat novel to the reader. "In England" says Professor Jenkin, "at the present time, it may almost be said that there are two sciences of electricity - one that is taught in ordinary text-books, and the other a sort of floating science known more or less perfectly to practical electricians... The science of the schools is so dissimilar from that of the practical electrician, that a student might have mastered De la Rive's treatise, and yet feel as if listening to an unknown tongue in the company of practical men. It is also not a little curious that the science known to the practical men was, so to speak, far more scientific than the science of the text-books. These latter contain an apparently incoherent series of facts, and it is only by some considerable mental labour that after reading the long roll of disjointed experiments, the student can even approximately understand any one experiment in its entirety... The difference between the electricity of schools and of the testing office has been mainly brought about by the absolute necessity of practice for definite measurement. The lecturer is content to say, under such and such circumstances, a current flows, or a resistance is increased. The practical electrician must know how much current, and how much resistance, or he knows nothing; the difference is analogous to that between qualitative and quantitative analysis. This measurement of electrical magnitudes absolutely requires the use of the word and idea potential, and of various units each with an appropriate name, in terms of which each electrical magnitude can be expressed." I have quoted these words because they explain better than I could have done it, what is, or at least what ought to be, the position of electro-physiology, and of electro-therapeutics, with regard to the electricity of the schools.
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