Note 14 — Chapter IV · Galvani, Discoverer of Animal Electricity.

With Galvani's attention to medical electricity, it is not surprising that for several years, beginning with 1873, an Italian medical journal called Il Galvani, with the sub-title Giornale di Elettro-Idro-ed Aero Terapia, was published at Milan. Its directors were the brothers Themistocles and Ulysses Santopadre. Those who think that an exaggeration of claims for electrical influence on various diseases is of comparatively recent date, will do well to consult that journal. The prophylaxis of yellow-fever is suggested by means of static electricity. The cause of yellow-fever is declared to be a disturbance of the electro-magnetic conditions of the body. Everything, from skin diseases to uterine inertia, chloroform asphyxia, aphasia, and the various forms of paralysis, and Basedow's disease, are described as cured by electrical treatment. So does science become the nursing mother of quackery.