The Franklinic interrupted current, or, My new system of therapeutic administration of static electricity / by William James Morton.

  • William J. Morton
Date:
1891
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The Franklinic interrupted current, or, My new system of therapeutic administration of static electricity / by William James Morton. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    of twenty thousand millions per second, more or less, we may find explanation of the analgesic effect of the Frank- linic interrupted current. Furthermore, its static quality wo ild enable it to set up an influence in anatomical parts regardless of the intervening medium, as witness the ac- 4- Fig. 13.—Diagram Illustrating Connections for Internal Treatment by the Sta- tic Induced Current. i. Indifferent electrode ; i1, uterine or other interior elect* rode. tion of the Phelps-Edison induction telegraph, where an inductive circuit sufficient to work a telephone may be set up across an air-space of even forty feet. Surely the analogies of electro-physics are safe guides, and the only safe stand-point from which to study the action of electricity upon the human body. Another effect upon sensory nerves is the production of a sour taste when the current is applied to the tongue, and of slight waves of light when applied about the eye. Gynecologicallv my system of conveying the current within the cavities of the body opens out a wide and promising field of clinical results. To improve the nu- trition and remove the pain in and about pelvic organs, in itself covers a large number of conditions of the ute rus and its appendages, not yet so thoroughly combated as to allow anyone to say that he can do without an agent so potent to relieve pain and restore local and ca- pillary circulation and set up favorable nutritive changes as the Franklinic current has demonstrated itself to be. Finally, I may say, as a result of a very considerable experience, that this current penetrates as deeply into the human body as even the galvanic, and I have no doubt that tests may be devised to demonstrate that this is a fact. It will not be one of the unusual retributions when it turns out that static electricity, now frequently referred to as superficial and incapable of affecting the deeper tissues, is accepted as being the most efficacious electric means we possess for reaching those tissues. I shall be content if my contribution of the Franklinic interrupted, and its wide range of internal and external uses, shall help to place electro-statical in that front rank of electro-therapeutics where I believe it should be. Dr. Ambrose L. Ranney, to whose able writing the subject of electro-statical therapeutics owes much, very kindly remarks : “ The greatest event, after its discovery, in the history of medical statical electrization or franklinism was the invention of the Holtz or induction machine, in 1865. Next in importance, perhaps, is the method discovered and put into practice by Dr. Morton, in 1880, of con- verting the static discharge into a dynamic discharge or current ; and the electrode represented in the above cut [Fig. xo] is the only novel electrode of any importance + not bequeathed to us by the medical electricians previous to 1880.” In conclusion, what is here brought forward as new is : 1. The generalization of what I announced as an iso- lated fact in 1881, that a regulated interruption in the otherwise inoperative circuit of a Holtz machine would produce in another part of the circuit a current adapted to electro-therapeutic practice. This current I now desig- nate the Franklinic interrupted current. It includes the adaptation of the parts of a Holtz machine to produce this result. 2. A new electrode combining this current with vari- ous terminals. 3. The practice of introducing Franklinic electricity in current form into the interior cavities of the human body. In short, a new system of the therapeutic administra- tion of Franklinic electricity in contradistinction to the system by sparks and its necessary limitations so long in vogue. 19 East Twenty-eighth Street.