Produced by Bryan Ness, Markus Brenner and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This book was produced from scanned images of public domain material from the Google Print project.) THE ELECTRIC BATH ITS MEDICAL USES, EFFECTS AND APPLIANCE BY GEORGE M. SCHWEIG, M.D. MEMBER OF THE NEW YORK COUNTY MEDICAL SOCIETY AND OF THE MEDICAL JOURNAL ASSOCIATION OF THE CITY OF NEW YORK; ONE OF THE PHYSICIANS TO THE NEW YORK LYING-IN ASYLUM, ETC. NEW YORK G. P. PUTNAM’S SONS 182 FIFTH AVENUE 1877 COPYRIGHT, G. P. PUTNAM’S SONS, 1876. PREFACE. In No 216 of “The Medical Record” (Dec. 15th, 1874) was published an article written by me, entitled “On some of the Uses of Galvanic and Faradic Baths.” The interest manifested in the subject, as evidenced by numerous letters of inquiry since received from physicians in almost all parts of the United States, and some in Europe, has induced me to write the present treatise, in which I have endeavored to present to the profession, as far as lies in my power, all that is necessary to a full comprehension of the electro-balneological treatment. When it is considered that in the employment of electric baths I have been to a great extent groping in the dark, that I have been deprived of the advantage of having the experience of others to guide me, it will not appear surprising that I should have met with many disappointments. My failures have been illustrative of the fact that the electric bath is no more a panacea for all ills than any other remedial agent. Applicable as it is to a great variety of pathological conditions, it meets with many where it is destined to have negative or at best imperfect results. Far from discouraging me, however, failures have served to inspire me with fresh ardor to seek for light, and to persevere in my efforts to establish on the basis of statistical truth, the therapeutic merits of the agent which I employed. In view of the imperfectness of the results thus far obtained, I should consider the present work premature, did I not find a justification for it in my desire to induce other and abler observers to investigate the subject, and place it on whatever footing it may merit.