III. On the effects of galvanism in restoring the due action of the lungs

In the prosecution of an inquiry in which I have been engaged for several years, some of the results of which were published in the Philosophical Transactions of last year, I have had occasion to make many experiments with galvanism, which seem to me to point out with more precision than has yet been done, what we are to expect from it in the cure of disease; and I think it will appear from what I am about to say, that to the want of discrimination in its employment we must ascribe the little advantage which medicine has hitherto derived from the discovery of this influence. It seems to be an inference both from my own experiments and observations and those of others, which I had the honour to lay before the Society in my first paper, that what is called the nervous system, comprehends two distinct systems, the sensorial, and the nervous system properly so called. Now it does not appear that galvanism can perform any of the functions of the sensorial system, yet, in the greater number of instances in which it has been used in medicine, it has been expected to restore the sensorial power. It has been expected to restore hearing, and sight, and voluntary power. It may now and then happen in favorable cases, from the connection which subsists between the sensorial and nervous systems, that by rousing the energy of the latter, we may excite the former. It would be easy to show, that we have little reason to expect that this will often happen. It also appears from the experiments to which I allude, that galvanism has no other power over the muscular system, than that of a stimulus; we are, therefore, to expect little more advantage from it in diseases depending on faults of the sanguiferous system, than from other stimuli. Hence its failure in tumors, &c. But I cannot help regarding it as almost ascertained, that in those diseases in which the derangement is in the nervous power alone, where the sensorial functions are entire, and the vessels healthy, and merely the power of secretion, which seems immediately to depend on the nervous system, is in fault, galvanism will often prove a valuable means of relief.