The extent to which the curative power of electric sparks from the Leyden jar was supposed to go is best appreciated from a list of the affections that one distinguished electro-therapeutist claimed could be not only benefited, but absolutely cured by its employment. It included pulmonic fever, under which title practically all the more or less acute diseases of the chest were included, and some at least of the sub acute; dropsy, by which was meant every effusion into the abdominal cavity no matter what its cause; dysentery, under which was included at that time not only the specific dysenteries but many of the summer complaints and some typhoid fevers; diarrhea, including all the intestinal diseases not already grouped under dysentery; putrid and bilious fever, under which category were assembled the worst cases of typhoid; typhus {43} fever, and all the other continued fevers, and any febrile condition reasonably severe for which no other term could be used; epidemic diseases, pest, anthrax, small-pox, cancer, gravel, diseases of the bladder and of the brain and spinal cord. The Leyden jar had no real effect on any of these affections, but doubtless the mental effect of this new remedy was quite sufficient to be of distinct therapeutic value in the milder forms of many of them. With Galvani's discovery of the twitching of the muscles of the frog there came a new impetus to the exploitation of electricity in medicine. Many felt that now it was beyond doubt that electrical energy bore some definite relation to vital energy--that one might be made to replace the other if indeed they were not more or less the same thing. This led to many applications of electricity in medicine. Students of physiology were convinced that they were getting close to the solution of the mystery of life, and their persuasion was readily carried over to the people of the time, so that electricity literally worked wonders on them.