Note 14 — LECTURE III. ELECTRICITY IN DIAGNOSIS AND TREATMENT.

Since writing as above, in 1873, our knowledge of the beneficial effects of Franklinism has been very largely added to and the improved apparatus, described at page 10, has enabled the treatment to be conducted with a degree of precision and success impossible with the comparatively imperfect instruments in use at that date. |Importance of distinguishing between the Positive and Negative Charge of Franklinism.| Dr. Radcliffe has contended for many years that the effect of a charge of positive electricity differs altogether therapeutically from that of a negative charge; and Giacomini (quoted by Duchenne[15]) attributes a hyposthenic influence to the negative charge. He contends that this charge is derived from the nerves of the patient instead of from the ground as is the positive charge, and it is ranked by the Italian School among their most valuable hyposthenisants. According to Giacomini the “patient is de-electrized, is consequently deprived of a greater or less quantity of a stimulant analogous to heat and undergoes a real hyposthenisant effect. Erysipelatous tissues may be seen to become blanched under its influence, and chronic inflammations undergo an unquestionable improvement. Headaches and neuralgic pains have been instantly relieved by this kind of electric flux as by the application of ice, which abstracts heat, and perhaps at the same time electricity also.”

In reference to the above it has been proved by various physicists that the natural electrical nerve current is strengthened by the positive charge, and weakened by the negative—and hence it would seem to be established that Dr. Radcliffe’s contention is the right one; and that these two charges are literally “wide as their poles asunder” not only physically, but therapeutically, and this divergence is more important when we recall to mind that when a patient is insulated, not only does the electricity accumulate upon the surface of the skin but that the whole body is saturated with it as a sponge may be with water.

|Franklinization in Conditions of Debility.|

In my own experience the positive charge has been of great good as a most potent restorer when the organism from any cause has become enfeebled. In the general weakness of old age it would seem to have been beneficial upon several occasions in resuscitating vital action and in imparting new force and energy. I have also used it with the best results in conditions of debility following acute diseases, as for example in convalescence from fevers; in cases of general prostration from overwork or anxiety—and in some cases of phthisis and other wasting diseases. In certain varieties of mental disease—notably melancholia—it is often of service, and in cerebral anæmia, in asthma, in inveterate insomnia, and in all functional uterine irregularities it should be employed before, not after, all other therapeutic agencies have been exhausted.