A Newly Discovered System of Electrical Medication

by Daniel Clark

It may be proper, in this place, to spend a few words upon electrical polarization in general.

Electrical polarity may be defined as a characteristic of the electric or magnetic fluid, by virtue of which its opposite qualities, as those of attraction and repulsion towards the same object, are manifested in opposite parts of the electric or magnetic body. These opposite parts are called the poles of the body, as the positive and negative poles. The difference between the positive and negative poles is believed to be that of plus and minus—plus being positive and minus negative. This is the Franklinian view, and, if I mistake not, is the one most in favor with men of science at the present day. This view supposes that the electricity or magnetism arranges itself in maximum quantity and intensity at the one extremity or pole of the magnetized body, and in minimum quantity and intensity at the opposite extremity or pole; and that, between these points—the maximum and the minimum—the fluid is distributed, in respect to quantity and intensity, upon a scale of regular graduation from the one to the other. The idea may be represented by a line, commencing in a point at the one end, and extending, with regularly increasing breadth, to the other end. The larger end would represent the positive pole, and the smaller, the negative pole. Or perhaps a better representation of the magnet would be a line of equal breadth from end to end, but having the one end white, or slightly tinted, say, with red, and the color gradually and regularly increasing in strength to the other end, where it becomes a deep scarlet. Let the coloring-matter represent the magnetism in the body charged, and we have the magnet illustrated in its polarization: the deep-red end is the positive pole, and the white or faintly-colored end is the negative pole.

It is a law of polarization that the positive poles of different magnets repel each other, and the negative poles repel each other; while positive and negative poles attract each other. The same law of polarization rules in electric or magnetic currents as in magnets at rest.

THE ELECTRIC CIRCUIT.

The Electric Circuit is made up of any thing and every thing which serves to conduct the electric current in its passage—outward and returning—from where it leaves the inner surfaces of the zinc plates in the battery cell to where it comes back again to the outer surfaces of the same plates. When the conducting-cords are not attached to the machine, or when the communication between the cords is not complete, if the machine be running, the circuit is then composed of the battery fluid, the platina plate, the posts, the connecting-wires, which unite the battery with the helix, the helical wires, and their appendages for the vibrating action. But when a patient is under treatment, the conducting-cords, the electrodes, and so much of the patient's person as is traversed by the current while passing from the positive electrode through to the negative electrode, are also included in the whole circuit. And whatever elements may serve to conduct the current in any part of its circuit—be they metal, fluid, nerve, muscle, or bone—the same are all, for the time, component parts of one complete magnet, which, in all its parts, is subject to the law of polarization, precisely as if it were one magnetized bar of steel. Usually, however, it is sufficient for practical purposes to contemplate the circuit as consisting only of that which the current passes through in going from the point where it leaves the positive post and enters into the negative cord, around to the point where it leaves the positive cord and enters into the negative post.

POLARIZATION OF THE CIRCUIT.

I have said, in effect, a little above, that, while the current is running, the entire circuit is one complete magnet, which extends from the inner or positive sides of the zinc plates, where the current commences, all the way around to the outer or negative aides of the zinc plates, to which it returns. Viewed in this light its negative pole or end is the battery fluid, next to the positive surfaces of the zinc plates, and its positive pole or end is the brass clamp which, holding the metals together, is in contact with the outer and negative surfaces of the zincs.

But, for practical purposes, it is sufficiently exact to consider the magnetic circuit as extending only from the positive post around through the conducting cords, the electrodes and the person of the patient to the negative post. The negative end or pole of this magnet is the wire end of the cord placed in the positive post, and the positive end or pole is the wire end of the cord placed in the negative post.

But any magnet may be viewed either as one whole, or be conceived as composed of a succession of shorter magnets placed end to end. If we view it as one entire magnet, we call the end in which the magnetic essence is in greatest quantity the positive end, and the end where it is in least quantity the negative end. But if we imagine the one whole magnet as being divided up into several sections, then we conceive of each section as a distinct magnet, having its own positive and negative poles. And, all the way through, these sectional magnets will be arranged with the positive pole of the one joined to the negative pole of the next in advance of it.

It is just so in respect to the magnetic circuit of a moving current. The whole circuit, as before remarked, is in reality one long magnet. But in applying the terms positive and negative in our practice we often view the whole circuit—the one long magnet—as composed of a series of shorter ones, arranged with positive and negative ends in contact; and all the way the current in each section is supposed to be running from the positive pole of the magnet behind to the negative pole of the magnet before.