References.—Ronalds’ “Catalogue,” p. 434; La Lumière Electrique for Sept. 5, 1891; the Electrician, London, Sept. 11, 1891.
A.D. 1783.—Wilkinson (C. H.), Scotch physician, publishes at Edinburgh his “Tentamen Philosophico-medicum de Electricitate,” which is followed, during 1798 and 1799, by other works upon electricity, wherein he cites a number of marvellous cures of intermittent fevers similar to those made by Cavallo, also of amaurosis (goutte sereine) and of quinsy (squinancie) like those performed by Lovet, Becket and Mauduyt.
During the year 1804 appeared the first edition, in two volumes, of his “Elements of Galvanism in Theory and Practice,” containing a very comprehensive review of the discovery from the time of Galvani’s early experiments. In this last-named work, however, he shows that incipient amaurosis and the completely formed gutta serena have not yielded to his own treatment by galvanic influence as had been the case with Dr. C. J. C. Grapengieser, who published many accounts of surprising cures (Grapengieser, “Versuche den Galvanismus ...” Berlin, 1801 and 1802, or Brewer and Delaroche, “Essai ...” Paris, 1802). The whole of Chap. XXXVI is devoted to the application of galvanism to medicine, whereto allusion had already been made in the first chapter of the same work.
Wilkinson refers also to the electricity of the torpedo, and to the observations made thereon by Hippocrates, Plato, Theophrastus, Pliny and Ælian, also by Belon, Rondelet, Salviana and Gesner, as well as by Musschenbroek, Redi, Réaumur, Walsh, Hunter, Spallanzani, ’Sgravesande, Steno, Borelli, Galvani and others. Much space is likewise given to the observations recorded on animal electricity, notably by Fontana, De La Méthérie, Berlinghieri, Vassali-Eandi, Humboldt, Pfaff, Lehot, Hallé, Aldini, and to the experiments of Valli as they were repeated before the French Academy of Sciences and before the Royal Society of Medicine of Paris, in presence of M. Mauduyt. When treating of the powers of galvanism as a chemical agent, reference is made to the decomposition of water, thus first effected in 1795 by Creve, the discoverer of metallic irritation, and to the operations of Nicholson and Carlisle, Dr. Henry, Cruikshanks, Haldane, Henry Moyes, Richter, Gibbes, etc.
References.—J. J. Hemmer, “Commentat Palatinæ,” VI, Phys., p. 47; Bertholon, “Elec. du Corps Humain,” 1786, Vol. I. pp. 314, 330, 483, and Vol. II. p. 299; “Bibl. Britan.,” 1808, Vol. XXXVIII. p. 270 (Phil. Mag., No. 105); Annales de Chimie, Vol. LXXVIII. p. 247; Phil. Mag., Vol. XXIX. p. 243, and Vol. XLIX. p. 299; F. Buzzi, “Osservazione ... amaurosi ... elettricita,” Milano, 1783 (“Opus. Scelti,” Vol. VI. p. 359); Nicholson’s Journal, Vol. VIII. pp. 1, 70, 206; also Vol. X. pp. 30–32, for letter relative to certain erroneous observations of Mr. Wilkinson respecting galvanism, by Mr. Ra. Thicknesse, who also wrote in Vol. IX. pp. 120–122, explaining the production of the electric fluid by the galvanic pile.
A.D. 1783.—Saussure (Horace-Benedict de), Professor of Physics at the University of Geneva and founder of the Society for the Advancement of the Arts in the same city, is the inventor of an electrometer designed to ascertain the electrical state of the atmosphere, which will be found described in Vol. VIII. p. 619 of the 1855 “Encycl. Britannica.”
He observed that electricity is strongest in the open-air, that it is weak in streets, under trees, etc., and that during the summer and winter, by night as well as by day, when the atmosphere is free from clouds, the electricity of the air is always positive. In contradistinction, Mr. T. Ronayne found in Ireland that the electricity of the atmosphere is positive in winter when the air is clear, but that it diminishes in frosty or foggy weather and that he could detect no electricity in the air during summer except on the approach of fogs, when the electricity proved to be positive. During the year 1785, M. de Saussure observed at Geneva that, during the winter, the intensity of atmospherical electricity attained its first maximum at 9 a.m., diminishing from that hour until it reached its minimum at 6 p.m., after which it began to increase until attaining its second maximum at 8 p.m., diminishing gradually thereafter till it recorded its second minimum at 6 a.m. During the summer he found the electricity increasing from sunrise till between 3 and 4 p.m., when it would reach its maximum; after that it appeared to diminish till the dew fell, when it again became stronger, but was scarcely sensible during the night.
Sir David Brewster informs us in his able article on “Electricity” in the “Britannica” that De Saussure made a number of elaborate experiments on the electricity of evaporation and combustion. He observed at first that the electricity was sometimes positive and sometimes negative when water was evaporated from a heated crucible, but in his subsequent trials he found it to be always positive in an iron and in a copper crucible. In a silver, also in a porcelain crucible, the electricity was negative and the evaporation of both alcohol and of ether in a silver crucible also gave negative electricity. M. de Saussure made many fruitless attempts to obtain electricity from combustion, and he likewise failed in his efforts to procure it from evaporation without ebullition.
To De Saussure is often erroneously attributed the authorship of Lullin’s “Dissertatio physica de electricitate,” alluded to at A.D. 1766.
References.—De Saussure’s “Dissertatio de Igne,” “Exposition abrégée,” etc. (translated by Giuseppe Toaldo, in both his “Della maniera,” etc., and “Dei conduttori,” etc., Venezia, 1772 and 1778), “Voyage dans les Alpes,” all published at Geneva, 1759, 1771, 1779, also the important 1786 Neuchatel edition of the last-named work, more particularly at pp. 194, 197, 203, 205, 206, 211, 212, 216, 218, 219, 228, 252, 254 of Vol. II, and at pp. 197, 257 of Vol. IV; likewise his Memoirs relative to the electricity of the atmosphere, of vegetables, of microscopic animals, etc., etc., alluded to in Journal de Physique for 1773, 1784, 1788; in Journal de Paris for 1784, 1785; in Vol. I of Lazaro Spallanzani’s “Opuscoli di fisica,” etc., for 1776; in Vol. III of the “Opuscoli Scelti di Milano,” and in the Philosophical Transactions. See also Jean Senebier, “Mémoire historique,” etc., Genève, 1801; Louis Cotte in his “Traité,” etc., “Mémoires,” etc., “Observation,” etc., Paris, 1762, 1769, 1772; in the “Mémoires de Paris,” Année 1769, “Hist.,” p. 19; Année 1772, “Hist.,” p. 16, and in the Journal de Physique for 1783, Vol. XXIII; the experiments of MM. Becquerel and Brachet in Becquerel’s “Traité d’El. et de Magn.,” Paris, 1836, Vol. IV. p. 110; Theodor Ægidius von Heller, “Beobach d. Atmosphär. Elektricität.” (F. A. C. Gren, “Neues Journal der Physik” for 1797, Vol. IV); Faujas de St. Fond, “Description,” etc., Vol. II. p. 271, as per George Adams’ “Essay on Electricity,” London, 1799, p. 419; Noad, “Manual,” etc., London, 1859, p. 16; Poggendorff, Vol. II. p. 755; Rozier, XXXI. pp. 317, 374; XXXIV. p. 161; articles “Meteorology and Electricity” in the “Encyclopædia Britannica”; Thomas Young, “Course of Lectures,” etc., London, 1807, Vol. II. pp. 447, 466–471.