Analytic physiology : treating of the cure of nervous diseases, by external applications to the spine / by Samuel Hood.
- Hood, Samuel.
- Date:
- 1829
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Analytic physiology : treating of the cure of nervous diseases, by external applications to the spine / by Samuel Hood. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, Harvard Medical School.
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![even of the phenomena of life in organized bodies. This ether, or electricity, he abundantly proved to be an essential property of all matter. Franklin discovered it to be a compound substance. VI. In the mean time, animal electricity was not wholly overlooked. The faculty which the torpedo and the gymnotus electricus possess, of numbing those who assail them, had long embellished the foe-side tale of the mariner ; but Redi, physician to the Grand Duke of Tuscany, was the first to show that this faculty is in proportion to the livehness of the animal. In 1772, Mr. Walsh established, by a series of experiments, the identity of the numbing power of the torpedo and electricity. To this valuable information, ]Mr. Hunter added an accurate description of its galvanic apparatus. In 1816, Mr. Todd, of the navy, communicated even a more important phy- siological fact to the Royal Society of London. He divided the nerves of the torpedo which go to be distributed in its galvanic battery, and found that, in consequence, it lost entirely the power of giving electric shocks. Mr. Todd's ex- periments were varied sufficiently to demonstrate, that the torpedo's power of generating galvanic electricity depends essentially on the nerves. VII. Many other inductive reasons corroborate the identity of electricity, galvanism, magnetism, and the vital force, an opinion which has of late](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21059524_0023.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
