5th. By the director. Place the patient on a chair—insulation in this
case being unnecessary. Then lay the ball, which communicates with the
outside coating of the director, upon the affected part; after which,
bring the director, which must have been previously charged, near any
other part of the body, and the intended operation will be performed. It
is impossible to tell the precise quantity of electricity which ought to
be administered in every complaint, because persons who are affected
with the same disease will sometimes require very different degrees of
electrization, which must be judged of by the nature of their
constitution, their habits of body, and other circumstances. Small
sparks will sometimes have more effect upon a delicate and irritable
constitution, than pretty powerful shocks upon others. The Leyden phial,
with Mr. Lane’s electrometer, is the most convenient instrument for
sending shocks of different powers through particular parts of the
body.—To use this.—Let the wire of the electrometer be placed at the
proper distance for the required shock; connect a chain or wire,
communicating with this, with the part affected—and let a communication
be made between any other part of the body and the outside coating of
the phial. Now turn the cylinder, and the phial, when it has received
the proper charge, will discharge itself through the circuit formed by
the chains or wires, and the part of the patient which was to be
subjected to the shock.
CHAP. XIX.
_Directions concerning the use of the electrical apparatus, with some
practical rules for performing experiments with it to the best
advantage._
The machine described in Chapter IV, or one similar to it, is capable of
exhibiting the principal electrical phenomena, provided it be skilfully
managed; but without such management it will constantly disappoint the
electrician, and prove of little use. Let the following directions and
observations, then, be attentively regarded.
1. Keep all the instruments as free as possible from dust and moisture.
2. When the weather is clear, the air dry and a little cold, the
electric fire may be easily and copiously collected. But when the
weather is hot or damp, the electrical machine is much less powerful.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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