Chapter 1

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A NEWLY DISCOVERED SYSTEM

OF

ELECTRICAL MEDICATION.

BY DANIEL CLARK, A. M.

CINCINNATI: PRINTED BY HITCHCOCK AND WALDEN, FOR THE AUTHOR. 1875.

Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1869, by

DANIEL CLARK, A. M.,

In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the Northern District of Illinois.

Transcriber's Note:

Minor typographical errors have been corrected without note. Medical, scientific, archaic and variant spellings remain as printed, except for obvious errors noted at the end of the text. The oe ligature is shown as [oe], whilst [->] represents a right-pointing index.

PREFACE.

In the summer of 1866, the author of this little book, moved by the repeated and earnest solicitation of his Medical Classes, prepared and printed a small pamphlet entitled _Practical Principles of Medical Electricity_, designed more particularly, as the present work also is, as a _Hand-Book_ to assist the memory of those who have taken a regular course of LECTURES from himself, or from some other competent instructor in the same general system of Practice. The edition of that work was exhausted somewhat more than a year ago. Still, the book has continued to be frequently called for. The author has, therefore, prepared, and now offers to the Profession, the present volume, comprising the substance of the previous work--corrected, improved in arrangement and form, and about doubled in size by the introduction of new matter. While he has reason for gratitude that the former manual, referred to above, has met with so favorable a reception, he can not but hope that the present work will be found even more acceptable and valuable to both practitioners and their patients.

It is but justice to say that the most essential principles of _practice_ here presented did not originate with the present author, but with PROF. C. H. BOLLES, of Philadelphia, their discoverer, from whom the writer received his first introduction to them. Yet, the _explanations_ here given of the Law of Polarization, as respects the electric current in the circuit of the artificial machine, as well as respecting the natural magnets and magnetic currents of the human organism; the introduction of the _long cord_, with the explanation of its advantages; and also nearly everything of the _philosophic theories_ here brought to view, the author alone is responsible for.

This work, like its little predecessor from the same pen, has been adapted exclusively to the use of DR. JEROME KIDDER'S Electro-Magnetic Machine, manufactured and sold, at present, at No. 544 Broadway, New York; because the author, having used in his own practice a considerable variety of the most popular machines intended for therapeutic purposes, and having examined several others, believes this to be incomparably _the best in use_. Dr. Kidder has, with most laudable zeal, pressed on his researches and improvements in the manufacture of these instruments, until there seems to be scarcely anything more in them to be desired. They are certainly not equalled by any others in America, and probably not surpassed, if equalled, by any in the world.

D. C. PLAINFIELD, ILL., June, 1869.

CONTENTS.

Page. INTRODUCTION xi

FIRST PRINCIPLES.

DR. JEROME KIDDER'S ELECTRO-MAGNETIC MACHINE 21 POLARIZATION 26 THE ELECTRIC CIRCUIT 28 POLARIZATION OF THE CIRCUIT 29 THE CENTRAL POINT OF THE CIRCUIT 33 THE CURRENT 35 MODIFICATIONS OF ELECTRICITY 36 THE VITAL FORCES--ANIMAL AND VEGETABLE 37 EXTENT OF ELECTRIC AGENCY 42 THEORY OF MAN 44 THE LOWER ANIMALS 54 THE VEGETABLE KINGDOM 56 NATURAL POLARIZATION OF MAN'S PHYSICAL ORGANISM 56 ELECTRICAL CLASSIFICATION OF DISEASES 58 PHILOSOPHY OF DISEASE AND CURE 58

PRINCIPLES OF PRACTICE.

POLAR ANTAGONISM 61 IMPORTANCE OF NOTING THE CENTRAL POINT 62 DISTINCTIVE USE OF EACH POLE 63 USE OF THE LONG CORD 69 THE INWARD AND THE OUTWARD CURRENT 74 MECHANICAL EFFECT OF EACH POLE 75 RELAXED AND ATROPHIED CONDITIONS 77 GENERAL DIRECTION OF THE CURRENT 78 TREATING WITH ELECTROLYTIC CURRENTS 79 POSITIVE AND NEGATIVE MANIFESTATIONS 81 HEALING 84 DIAGNOSIS 84

PRESCRIPTIONS.

PRELIMINARY REMARKS 94 GENERAL TONIC TREATMENT 95 COMMON COLDS 98 CEPHALAGIA (Headache) 100 DEAFNESS 102 NOISES IN THE HEAD 103 INFLAMED EYES 103 AMAUROSIS 104 STRABISMUS (Discordance of the Eyes) 104 CATARRH (Acute) 105 CATARRH (Chronic) 105 DIPHTHERIA 106 APHONIA (Loss of Voice) 106 CROUP 107 ASTHMA 108 HEPATIZATION OF LUNGS 108 PNEUMONIA 108 PULMONARY PHTHISIS (Consumption) 109 NEURALGIA AND RHEUMATISM OF THE HEART 111 ENLARGEMENT AND OSSIFICATION OF THE HEART 112 PALPITATION OF THE HEART 112 TORPID LIVER 112 HEPATITIS (Inflammation of Liver) 113 ENLARGEMENT OF LIVER 113 BILIARY CALCULI (Gravel in Liver) 114 INTERMITTENT FEVER (Ague and Fever) 114 NEPHRITIS (Inflammation of Kidneys) 115 RENAL CALCULI (Gravel in the Kidneys) 116 DIABETES (A Kidney Disease) 116 DYSPEPSIA 117 ACUTE DIARRH[OE]A 119 CHRONIC DIARRH[OE]A 119 CHOLIC (of whatever kind) 120 CHOLERA MORBUS 120 CHOLERA (Malignant) 121 DYSENTERY 122 CONSTIPATION OF BOWELS 122 HAEMORRHOIDS (Piles) 123 RHEUMATISM (Acute Inflammatory) 124 RHEUMATISM (Chronic) 125 DROPSY 126 NEURALGIA 126 SCIATICA 127 PARALYSIS 128 ERYSIPELAS 129 ERUPTIVE CUTANEOUS DISEASES 130 COMMON CRAMP 131 TRISMUS (Lockjaw) 132 TETANUS 132 CANCERS 133 ASPHYXIA (Suspended Animation) 134 RECENT WOUNDS, CONTUSIONS AND BURNS 135 OLD ULCERS 135 HEMORRHAGE 136 CHLOROSIS (Green Sickness) 136 AMENORRH[OE]A (Suppressed Menstruation) 138 DYSMENORRH[OE]A (Painful Menstruation) 138 MENORRHAGIA (Excessive Menstruation) 139 PROLAPSUS UTERI (Falling of the Womb) 140 LEUCORRH[OE]A (Whites) 140 SPERMATORRH[OE]A 141 IMPOTENCE 142

INTRODUCTION.

Considerable parts of this book have been written for the unlearned. For the scholarly reader such parts, of course, would be wholly superfluous; yet it is hoped that they to whom these are familiar will be patient in passing through them for the sake of others to whom they may be instructive. Other parts, again, it is believed, will be found new to the most of even educated minds. But men of the largest intellectual attainments are commonly the most docile. Such men, meeting this little work, will not shrink from a candid examination of its contents merely on account of their comparative novelty, nor because the views expressed differ essentially from those usually held by the medical faculty. The candid, yet critical, attention of such gentlemen, the author especially solicits. He assures them that he does not write at random, but from careful research and practical experience. His _philosophic theories_ he offers only for what they are worth. His _principles of practice_ he believes to be scientifically correct and of great value.

Let it not be supposed that the author, in this work, assumes a belligerent attitude towards the members of the medical profession. Although anxious to modify and elevate their estimate of electricity as a remedial agent, and to improve their methods of using it, he has no sympathy with those who profess to believe, and who assert, that medicines of the apothecary never effect the cure of disease; that where they are thought to cure, they simply do not kill; and who contend that the patient would have recovered quicker and better to have taken no medicine at all. He knows that such allegations are false, as they are extravagant; and so does every candid and unprejudiced observer whose experience has given him ordinary opportunities to judge. The writer believes it can be perfectly demonstrated that the advancement of medical science in modern times--say within the last two or three hundred years--has served to essentially prolong the average term of human life. The world owes to medical instructors and practitioners a debt of gratitude which can never be paid. Their laborious and often perilous research in the fields of their profession, and their untiring assiduity in the application of their science and skill to the relief of human suffering, entitle them to a degree of confidence and affectionate esteem which few other classes of public servants can rightly claim. For one, the author of this little book most sincerely concedes to them, as a body, his confidence, his sympathy, and his grateful respect. And the most that he is willing to say to their discredit, (if it be so construed), is that he regards them as having not yet attained _perfection_ in their high profession, and as not being generally as willing as they should be to examine fairly into the alleged merits of remedial agents and improved principles of practice, (claimed to be such), when brought forward by intelligent, cultivated and respectable men, outside of "the regular profession." This is said at the same time that the author gives much weight to their commonly offered defense, viz: that, in the midst of professional engagements, they have not always the time to spare for such examination; and that, since the most of alleged improvements in the healing art, particularly of those introduced by persons who have not received a regular medical education, sooner or later prove themselves to be worthless, the _presumption_--though not the _certainty_--is, whenever a new agent, or a new method or principle is proposed by an "outsider," that this, too, if not willful charlatanism, is a mistake; and therefore, the sooner it comes to an end the better it will be for the public health, and that neglect is the surest way to kill it.

But the medical faculty have too widely employed electricity in the treatment of disease, and that with too frequent success, to admit of its being denied a place among important therapeutic agents by any respectable practitioner. The only questions concerning it now are those which relate to the _versatility_ of its power, the _scope_ of its useful applicability, and the _principles_ which should guide in the administration of it. The general subject embraced in these questions is one in which suffering humanity has a right to claim that physicians shall be at home.

And yet it will scarcely be denied that, in the exhibition of electricity, more than of almost any other therapeutic agent, medical practitioners feel incertitude as to what shall be its effect. Now and then it acts as they expected it to do; sometimes it pleasantly surprises them; oftener it offensively disappoints them. They find it _unreliable_. Of other remedial agents, they commonly know, before administering them, what _sort_ of effect will be produced; but in employing this, while they have hope, they are generally more or less in doubt. They regard it as _a stimulant_; although its action on the living organism appears to them to be largely veiled in mystery. In many cases of disease, particularly those of acutely inflammatory or febrile character, they judge it to be not at all indicated. To administer it in a case of bilious or typhoid fever, or in a case of pneumonia, pleuritis, gastritis, inflammatory rheumatism, or acute, and especially _epidemic_ or malignant dysentery, or in a case of pulmonary phthisis, would probably be viewed by the most of physicians as the rashest empiricism, if not the next thing to madness. _The idea of producing antagonistic effects with it at will_, they would, for the most part, esteem preposterous. Rather, perhaps, it may be said of the majority of medical practitioners that such an idea has never entered their minds; so foreign is it to their conceptions of truth and propriety. But, at whatever risk of discredit or censure, the writer of the present volume avers that this idea is both scientifically sound and of every day's practical verification. The various and opposite forms of disease--acute and chronic, hypersthenic and asthenic--are habitually treated and _cured_, in his own practice and that of his students, by electricity alone.

But "_cui bono?_" may be asked. "What if it be true that these things can be done with electricity? They are also done with medicines, which are more quickly and conveniently administered, and usually less annoying to the patient. What, therefore, is the _practical utility_ of your electric system above the ordinary practice, especially if we include, in the latter, electrical treatment as occasionally employed by the most of respectable physicians?"

This is the important question--that to which the author desires to call particular attention. He, therefore, answers:

_First._--It is manifestly true that the most of diseases, (the exceptions are comparatively few), can be cured by the use of medicines. It is also true that these can generally be administered with more convenience and less expenditure of time to the practitioner than electricity; and this is a great advantage. The author is often asked if he thinks his electric system will ever supersede the use of medicines. His answer is uniformly, "No." It takes too much time for that. Where the population is crowded, as in cities and large towns, it is often the case, especially in times of prevailing epidemic, that a physician can prescribe medicine for half a dozen or more patients in the time required to treat one electrically. To reject medicines and rely alone on electricity would, in periods and places of prevailing sickness, leave many sufferers without professional service, or would require that the proportion of doctors to the whole population should be largely increased--a thing certainly not often to be desired. So much, candor must concede.

_Second._--It is not quite true that medicines are usually less annoying to the patient than electricity as _we_ use it. As administered by others, it is often nearly intolerable. In our hands, on the contrary, it seldom inflicts any pain or distress, and almost invariably becomes agreeable to the patient after a very few applications. We have no occasion to torture our patients in order to cure them. But the cases are comparatively rare where medicines are not offensive; commonly they are excessively so.

_Third._--In not a few diseases, and these among the most dangerous or distressful, the electric current, employed according to the system here taught, is able to reach, control and cure, with facility, where medicines are but slowly, and in most instances imperfectly successful, or fail altogether. This is said, or meant to be said, not invidiously nor boastingly, but in the candid utterance of a great and practically demonstrated truth. It is, perhaps, most _often_ exemplified in neuralgic, rheumatic and paralytic affections. The author is happy to acknowledge that these diseases are frequently mitigated, and occasionally cured, by means of electrical treatment administered by those who know nothing of the system here taught. But the important fact is, in _their_ hands there is _no certainty_ as to the effect before trial. Under _this_ system, the kind of effect is as certainly known before as after the trial, since it can be made one thing or another _at will_.

Cases are not unfrequently presented of _inflammatory action_, more especially where it is internal--traumatic cases and others--which the practitioner finds it impossible to subdue with medicine. But, with a proper knowledge of the system herein taught, he has at his command a power with which he can control such cases with almost infallible certainty, provided he can get access to them within reasonable time. The same may be said of fevers, particularly those occasioned by miasmatic or infectious virus. These are often difficult to manage by the use of medicine, and not seldom prove fatal, in spite of the best talent and skill which the profession can afford. But the electric current, rightly selected and scientifically applied, destroys or neutralizes the virus and restores the normal polarization, and so effects a cure.

_Neuralgic affections_ are frequently found difficult, or even impossible, to be cured by means of medicines, and yet, in the very same cases, these affections yield and disappear with comparative facility when brought under the electric current, judiciously applied, according to the principles of this new system.

_Chronic cases, and others of an asthenic character_, are often very stubborn under the medicines of pharmacy, and are commonly the dread of physicians; yet, under scientific treatment by electricity, they rarely fail to lose their formidable character and to become obedient to the remedial agent.

_Fourth._--In enumerating a few of the peculiar advantages of this system, I should add that it corrects the usual _electric_ practice of the profession, so far as they become acquainted with it. As before intimated, the mass of physicians at present, who treat more or less electrically, do so with no knowledge, or next to none, of the great _versatility_ of action of which the electric current is capable. They know nothing of the electrical polarization of the living organism in health, nor how it is variously affected in disease. The particular _electrical_ state of the diseased organs is a matter foreign to their minds. They appear to suppose the point to be immediately aimed at as a means of cure is to get the electricity from the machine into the affected part or parts; whereas it should be to change, by correction, the _polarization_ of the part or parts; and, if there be virus present, to neutralize that. Equally unacquainted are they generally with the diverse physiological action of the several modifications of the electric force--galvanism, magnetism, faradism, and frictional electricity. This, in their candor, they commonly acknowledge. And, for the most part, they are little or nothing better acquainted with the _distinctive_ effects on the system of the positive and negative poles of the instrument. There is, therefore, plainly no _science_ in their electrical practice. Every thing is done at random--all is empirical.

But the system here taught opens the light upon all of these points. For practical purposes, at least, it is, in its essential features, the only system of electrical therapeutics which has in it any real merit--the only system which _can be true_. By this, the writer does not mean to assert, or to imply, that the little book now before the reader contains no error, either in respect to theory or practice. In this early stage of our system's history, it would be remarkable if it did not contain errors in both these respects. But what it is intended to affirm is, that the book presents the _cardinal features_ of a true, and the only possibly true, system of electrical practice. All possibly true systems of geometry must necessarily be essentially the same; and so, too, all possibly true systems of electrical medication must be essentially one. That one system, it is candidly and confidently believed, is briefly contained in the present little volume.

ELECTRICAL MEDICATION.

FIRST PRINCIPLES.

DR. JEROME KIDDER'S ELECTRO-MAGNETIC MACHINE.

On opening the machine-box, as it comes from the manufacturer, there will be found a glass bottle, intended to hold the battery fluid when not in use; a glass cup or jar, to serve as the battery cell; a pair of insulated metallic conducting cords; two tin electrodes; a brass clamp; and, under the helix-box, (which raise), the battery metals and two connecting wires to unite the battery with the helix.

To put the machine in working condition--ready for use--proceed, step by step, as follows, viz: Prepare the _Battery Fluid_ by mixing twelve parts, by measure, of water with one part of sulphuric acid, (good commercial acid is pure enough), sufficient to fill the cell two-thirds or three-fourths full, and place in it about one-third of an ounce of quicksilver.

Next, place the platina plate between the two zinc plates, standing on their legs upon a table before you; and bring the top of the wooden bar (in a groove of which the platina is set) up flush with the top of the zinc plates. Let the brass post, standing on the top of this bar and soldered to the platina plate below, be toward the left-hand side. Then take the brass clamp and place it across the top of these metallic plates, a little to the right of the brass post, or about midway between the right and left sides, having its thumb-screw towards you, and with it screw the three plates firmly together. The platina is shorter than the zincs, to prevent its reaching the quicksilver in the bottom of the cell; and the wax balls on its sides are to insulate it from the zinc plates. This platina should never be allowed to touch the mercury or the zinc.

Let the plates, properly screwed together, be now placed in the cell with the Battery Fluid. Then, with the two copper connecting-wires, connect the post which stands on the wooden bar above the platina with the post stamped P on the helix-box, and the brass clamp N with the post N on the helix-box.