If this force controls to a great degree the living functions of our organs in their healthy action, it must be that it is concerned in those derangements and lesions which constitute disease and abnormal actions or disorders. It must have a remedial and the opposite effect, according as it is applied.
Is such a gigantic power to be left in the hands of charlatans, or shall it be reserved for application by scientific physicians? This is a question we must meet and answer practically.
It may be asked why a force of this nature has been so long neglected by practising physicians. The answer is very simple, and will be recognized as true by all middle-aged physicians in this country.
For the past fifty years it has been customary to state in lectures in our medical colleges, that "chemistry has nothing to do with medicine"; and since our teachers knew nothing of the subject themselves, they denounced such knowledge as unnecessary to the physician. Electricity, the great moving power in all chemical actions, shared the fate of chemistry in general, and met with condemnation without trial. A young physician did not dare to meddle with chemicals or with any branch of natural or experimental science for fear of losing his chance of medical employment by sinking the doctor among his gallipots.
Electricity, thus neglected, fell into the hands of irregular practitioners, and was as often used injuriously as beneficially, and more frequently without any effect. The absurd pretensions of galvanic baths for the extraction of mercury from the system will be remembered by most of our citizens, and the shocking practice of others is not forgotten.
It was therefore earnestly desired by medical practitioners who themselves were not by education competent to manage electric and galvanic machinery, that some medical man of good standing, who had made a special study of this subject, should undertake the treatment of diseases requiring the use of electricity. Dr. Garratt was induced to undertake this important duty, and he has prepared a work on this practice which embraces all that has appeared in the writings of others, both in this country and Europe, while he has, from his own researches and rich experience, added much new matter of great practical value. Among his original contributions we note,--