looked upon as a therapeutic result.

With respect to the temperature, the results were somewhat more uniform. I have found that where this is either normal or slightly below, the immediate but transient effect is to raise it from 2 to 6 tenths of a degree (Fahrenheit)—in most instances 4 tenths. In a very few cases it remained unchanged, and in one case, where before the bath the temperature was 100, at the close of the bath it was 99⅗. Of permanent modifications of the temperature, the same holds good that I have said of permanent changes in the pulse. It must not be forgotten that the temperature of the water is undoubtedly an important factor in modifying the temperature of the body. In almost all instances where my observations were made, the temperature of the water was below that of the body, being 95° or a little less. This, which has a tendency to lower the bodily temperature, is to some extent counterbalanced by the suppression of the insensible perspiration, so that modifications of temperature resulting from electric baths, the water of which is but few degrees below 98½°, may justly be attributed to the influence of the electric current. The importance of the electric bath as a

PHYSIOLOGICAL STIMULANT AND TONIC

cannot be overrated. I deem it superior in this respect to any other known agent. This effect manifests itself immediately by a feeling of exhilaration and unwonted vigor, remotely by an improvement—where there is a margin for such—in the performance of some or all of the physiological functions, as well as by a gradual but nevertheless marked increase in weight.

Most striking among the tonic influences of the baths, are those that occur within the sphere of the digestive and sexual apparatuses. I will first consider the effects on

THE DIGESTIVE APPARATUS,

which may be subdivided into those on a) the appetite, b) digestion, absorption and assimilation, and c) alvine excretion. The improvement of the appetite under electro-balneological treatment is one of the most constant effects of this. While a series of baths will produce permanent results in this respect, an increase of the appetite, in some instances amounting to positive hunger, is a tolerably uniform and more or less immediate result of each separate bath. The permanent improvement of the appetite is relative. Not very appreciable where this is normal, it becomes most marked where the appetite has from some cause been impaired. The effect on the appetite is definite. The effects on absorption and assimilation are presumptive; but when we couple the absence of any corresponding difficulty in digesting the increased supply of food, with the increase before alluded to in the weight of the body, their assumption becomes fully justifiable. It is these combined influences that make the electric bath so valuable a remedy in almost all forms of dyspepsia.

The influence on the alvine process is if anything even more marked than that on the assimilative process. Where the action of the bowels is normal, it is not modified permanently by the electric bath, although we often have, as an immediate consequence, a cathartic effect that manifests itself as a more or less watery evacuation, either a few hours after the bath or on the succeeding day. Where the fecal process however is sluggish, the improvement resulting from the baths is very striking. I shall recur more fully to this subject under the head of constipation.

The effects on the various functions connected with digestion are due doubtless to the combined influences of stimulation of the secretions of the alimentary canal and stimulation of the muscular coats of the stomach and intestines, as well as permanent tonization of the muscularis. While the enhancement of the secretions is undoubtedly due chiefly to the electric stimulus to the secreto-motor nerves, and the increased activity of the muscular coats to a like influence transmitted to their motor nerves, I believe the permanent tonization and invigoration of the muscular fibres to be mainly attributable to the direct trophic influence of the current traversing the parts themselves; and I have no doubt that this direct influence has much to do with the stimulation of the secretions and peristalsis also. At any rate, I have never obtained from galvanization of the nervous centres, which I have practiced in a great number of cases, the striking effects on the alimentary processes which are so uniform a result of the baths.

The influence on the

SEXUAL APPARATUS

of the electric bath does not manifest itself in so striking a manner as in the case of the organs of digestion. It is true I have seen individuals whose sexual functions were normal, have stysis in the bath, but the mere cutaneous irritation of the electric current is here sufficient to account for a phenomenon which, where sexual irritability is intact, will follow any other local irritations.

If not as immediately perceptible, the stimulant and permanent tonic and invigorating influences on the sexual organs are not much less constant than the corresponding influences on digestion. Careful observation, however, of a considerable number of cases where the sexual function was more or less impaired, has convinced me that while there can be no doubt that direct influence on the innervation, tone and nutrition of the respective parts as well as the stimulus which the electric current furnishes to the seminal secretion, bear a share in the improvement that takes place, permanent beneficial results must be looked upon as chiefly the expression of improved nutrition and tonization of the system at large. I do not mean to be understood as wishing to put in negation the beneficial results that the local influence of electricity is capable of sometimes accomplishing in the sexual sphere. These results, however, are not of a physiological, but rather of a purely therapeutic nature, and are obtained there only where local morbid conditions exist. Now, in the great majority of the cases that have come under my observation, the causes of deterioration of the sexual capacity, though frequently obscure and indefinable, were certainly not local, but to be sought for in the general—most probably the nervous—system. In none but perhaps the very mildest and recent cases have I ever seen rapid results follow electrical treatment of any kind whatsoever. In support of my assertion however that in the majority of cases the sexual sphere can be influenced only through the system at large, I will state first, that I have seen cases where local electrical treatment had utterly failed to do the slightest good, respond favorably to the baths, and second, that where success was met with, it was only after persistent treatment, continued long enough to modify favorably the condition of the entire organism, and through this the objective sphere.

The stimulant and tonic effects under consideration, although shared to some extent by other methods of electrization, are here far more comprehensive and pronounced, a fact which is not surprising, when we reflect that in the electric bath not only are all the organs indirectly influenced through stimulation of the nervous centres, but each separate organ is at the same time directly acted upon by the current.

A direct sequence of the stimulant and tonic effects of the electric bath is its

SEDATIVE INFLUENCE.

This sedative effect, whereof the hypnotic effect already spoken of