Iron County register. [volume] (Ironton, Iron County, Mo.) 1867-1965, 1895-12-05
The Marveis Of Electricity.

A recent number of the arena con-
tains an article on the subject of cleo
tricity. contributed by Prof. Joseph r.
Buchanan, NJ D., which presents the
subject in such novel and wonderful
light that we make no apologies for
transferring as many of lis salient
points as space permits, collated by a
writer in the New Orleans States.
He says that the wonderful revela-
tions OF Tesla, Hertz and Edison have
excited vast expectations and some
wild predictions as to the future OF
electricity. The energy with which
electric inventions and appliances
have been introduced in the arts, rev.
olutionizing industries and bringing
millions of capital into profitable in
vestments (seven hundred millions In
the United States) is a grand object
lesson to illustrate the difference be-
tween unfettered genius and enter
prise, and 1.-THE slow progress OF corpor-
ations ruled by dogma and controlling
the entire field" He here refers to
the contrast between the progress of
electricity in the arts, and of electrici-
ty in therapeutics, in which it falls in
to the hands Of s'a class strictly ruled
by corporations, called colleges and
societies, which are jealous of innova-
tion." The writer is disposed to be
very severe upon the universities that
have an established literary and scien-
tific creed to maintain, which stand as
a barrier against the invasion of geni-
us, as the professors of his day stood
against GaIileo; as the Medical Acad-
envy of Fairview ridiculed Harvey's
simple and almost self-evident discov-
cry of the mechanical functions of the
heart; as collegiate science pronounced
the crossing of the Atlantic by steam
impracticable, and considered electrici-
ty incapable of competing with steam
as it in England sneered at Thomas
Gray. the first advocate of railroads.
as lunatic; as a New York 1egisla-
tive committee decided that railroads
were entirely impracticable. 1t is
maintained that in all intellectual pro-
gress the element of authority. must
= 1la1t trb nf yrh
seen in the brilliant and rapid pro-
gress of practical electricity in face OF
the fact that the first experiments OF
Morse were pronounced by a Boston
news paper to be trick of the opera
tor and that his invention was ridi-
culed by Congress.
The writer mentions as a singular
fact that while the brilliant mechani-
cal career of electricity is but recent,
its medical career began more than a
hundred and fifty years ago. 1t had
an ephemeral career among French
physicians, but fell out of fashion there,
probably from the tendency to mental
stagnation which led them to drop the
marvellous discoveries of Gall in the
brain. Static, or fractional electricity
would have immensely advanced and
revolutionized therapeutics ''if the pro-
fession had not had a sort of contemp-
tuous incidence in regard to all impor-
tant innovations" Reference is made
to the fact that John Wesley. the found
er of Methodism. published in 1859 a
small treatise entitled The Desidera-
tum, Or Electricity Made Plain and
Useful, by lover of Mankind and Of
Common Sense" in which he earnest
ly protested against the ignoring and
abandoning Of so great blessing to
mankind, and at the same time emu
merating some fifty ailments in which
frictional electricity had proved bene-
fetal if not absolutely curative. This
earnest appeal to the medical profess
sion was in vain. A hundred years
later the profession was still indiffer-
ent and Ranking, as late as 1917, said
of the therapeutic use of galvanism:
The subject is manifestly in its infan-
cy; it has met with comparatively little
favor either in England, France or
Germany"
Want of space prevents following the
writer through many cases cited of the
beneficial effects OF electricity in the
treatment of diseases. and of its won
derful influence upon vegetation.
All electrical scientists agree that
the magnitude of the results that may
come from this mysterious power over
whelms the Imagination. Their hopes
are more brilliant and amazing than
that was ever called Utopian.
Edison aims to convert the heat of
coal directly into electrical power,
thus making it ten times as effective
as it is at present Sauguine schemers
even talk of treating the whole earth |
as a storage battery to supply power |
10 mankind and as free as air and wa
ter. Ii but one-fourth of what is seri-
ously contemplated at present shall
ever be realized, ..the curse of exhaust