lamentable effect. The patient cried out to the
operator, "Stop, sir; I see your whole room
in a blaze!" The operator stopped, but the
unhappy patient lost his sight for ever!

It was Mr. Faraday who brought another
principle into the education of the lightning
family, and taught the once wild sparks more
sedate behaviour, by discovering the electricity
by induction, which, as the electricity by
contact was named Galvanism after its
discoverer, may, with all deference to a great
name taken perhaps in vain, be entitled
Faradism.

At the last annual meeting of the Royal
College of Physicians, a new apparatus,
was exhibited for applying Faradism to
the treatment of neuralgia and paralysis, as
first proposed by Dr. Duchenne, at Paris.
The other day, Faradism was brought to my
notice in the manner following. In Portman
Square, I saw a donkey-cart minus its driver.
The donkey being in high glee, treated the
whole neighbourhood with a discordant
hymn; and I looked with amazement on
a fashionably dressed gentleman standing
before the vocalist. He seemed to enjoy the
music mightily, clapping his hands and
laughing like a child. I recognised in this
gentleman a foreign friend, whom I had not
seen for several months, and whom I should
have been very glad now to encounter, but
for his absurd behaviour, although a
conversation with him was no pleasant thing;
for many years ago he lost his hearing,
nobody could tell him why. I tapped my
friend on his shoulder, asking him with eyes,
nose, fingers and arms, what was the matter.
He sobbed with an almost child like smile.

"It is s-o very ve-ry long I have n-ot heard
an ass crow."

"Heard an ass crow!"

"Yes," he said, "heard an ass. I heard
you pretty well, and so you need not ply the
telegraph."

We shook hands heartily, and I congratulated
him sincerely on the benefit he had
derived from the salines of Kissingen.

" We won't bless Kissingen! " he
answered. " I have been bored almost to death
there. If you want anybody to bless, let it
be the lightning doctor."

"What doctor!"

"Well, the lightning doctor. He takes out
of a tea-caddy a tame lightning, sends it into
my ear, where it softly scrapes and buzzes
like a blue-bottle. I am on my way to see
the doctor. Come with me."

I went with him to his physician, whom
he had the kindness to inform that I had
a sadly benumbed brain, and that a couple
of lightnings sent into it would make it
work more briskly. No other patients
waiting, the lightning doctor kindly showed
his apparatus, and explained his way of
using it. The whole machinery is
contained in a chest not larger than a tea-
caddy. It consists of a pile of charcoal and
zinc. The latter is placed in a porous
earthen vase, which is placed in a cylinder of
zinc, covered by one of copper. Nitric acid
being poured into the porous vase, and salt
water into the zinc cylinder, the pile or
battery is charged. A wire of platinum,
upon which acids do not act, conducts the
electric current to the bobbin of induction.
It consists of two copper wires of different
diameters, covered by silk. The thicker
wire has a diameter of about three
hundredths of an inch, and is rolled round a soft
iron in the centre. The thinner wire,
having a diameter but half as great, is rolled
round the thick wire. The silk covering
serves to isolate each wire, silk being no
conductor.

When the pile is put in communication
with the extremities of one of the copper
wires, a modification is instantaneously
effected in the electric state of the wire and
the central soft iron. The first is traversed
by the current of the pile, and the second
becomes temporarily magnetic. When the
circle is again opened, the central soft iron
loses its magnetism, and the natural elasticity
of the wire resumes its usual state.

The electric current of the thick and that
of the thin wire—called that of the first
and the second order have not the same
physiological effects. That of the first order
acts chiefly on the contractile powers of the
muscles; whilst that of the second order
acts upon the sensibility. The reason of this
is unknown.

In the application of this electricity it is
possible to make the dose proportionate to
the requirement of the case. The chief
moderator of the force of the current in this
apparatus is a cylinder of copper covering
the bobbin. When this is taken away
altogether the current is strongest, and the more
the bobbin is covered with the cylinder, the
weaker is the current. This is a fact, but
the reason of it is a mystery.

But, even when the cylinder covers the
bobbin altogether, the electric current is
sometimes too strong for some persons, as
women and children, and needs to be modified
yet more. This is done by a clever litlle
instrument, a tube of glass, the end of which
is joined to a metallic screw, which fastens it
to one of the conductors. A metallic rod can
be moved in the tube, which is to be filled
with water, an indifferent conductor. The
more this rod is taken out of the glass tube,
the more water is of course brought between
the end of the rod and the screw, with the
conductor fastened to it: the more, therefore,
is the power of the current diminished, until
at a certain point it is hardly to be felt.

Again, there is a way of forcing the
electric sparks, which form a current, to
keep at a certain distance from each other.
This is done with a small strip of soft iron,
put in movement by the temporary
magnetism of the central iron; when the