GENERAL INVIGORANT AND TONIC
the electric bath can have few if any superiors. In the healthy organism, however, the stimulant and tonic effects of the baths are much less marked than they are where the general condition is “below par.” In health there is little or no margin for improvement. The results obtained are temporary stimulation, and a permanent invigoration which partakes more of artificial development than anything else. It is analogous to the development by gymnastic or other exercise of a previously healthy set of muscles. Where we meet with atonic conditions however, with debility, malnutrition, want of energy or general asthenia of an obscure nature, and amenable to electric influence, the tonic effects of the baths become striking and brilliant. I have observed cases where patients fairly bloomed up under their influence and acquired actually more physical strength and weighed more than before they became sick. When we consider how in such conditions as those mentioned, patients are made to swallow pills and mixtures for months or years, or, more appropriately, and if they can afford it, are sent abroad, we can realize the importance of an agent by means of which the desired end can be obtained more conveniently, certainly, economically and in a shorter time than by any other means. There is no rule without its exceptions, and I freely admit that in many instances where persons are, as the saying is, “run down,” a sojourn in some mountainous region or a course of sea-bathing, etc., would do them more good than anything else, electric baths included. The results obtained from these last are however sufficiently uniform to justify us in looking for very favorable results in every case.
In the preceding chapter I have already dwelt on the