The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1896-04-05
Copyright, 1896, by S. S. Mcclure,
Limited.)

Each advance of the various sciences
brings them all closer together, the diff
ferent paths seeming to converge to-
ward one common point Already most
of the mysteries of the physical world
are alike in this, that they are, ac-
cording to best opinion, enacted in the
same medium, what is called the ether,
that imponderable, invisible, elusive
something in which all scientists believe
as Christians do in God. Light moves
in the ether. heat comes through the
gravitation is thought to act in connec-
ton with the ether, and now we have
the Roentgen rays accounted for as lon
gitudinal stresses in the ether. And
back of all, underlying all, over and
above all, is electricity, that mother
mystery, related to all other mystic
ries, which also works its wonders in
the ether.
Who shall say that the life force in
man, like these other forces, is not an
electrical manifestation, and that when
the soul leaves the body it is not trans
mitted to distant realms through this
same ether which brings light to us
from the sun at the rate of 1876 miles
in second! Tesla regards life as am
electric phenomenon, and Graham Bell
has pursued active experiments to dem
onStrate that the signals from brain to
muscles through the nerves are electric
signals, governed by ordinary laws of
electricity, and that thought is an cleo
trical process resulting from an excl
tatlon OF the body'S great electrical CEN
ter, that is the brain. The researches
Of Tarchanoff have recently brought
startling proof that activity of the
brain sets up electrical currents over
the body, and a delicate galvanometer
would show deviating needle if prop
erly applied to a person who should
suddenly concentrate his mind upon
some complicated mathematical prob
lem. And if delicate apparatus is used,
even a tickling of the skin, sudden
noise, strong odor of a bright light
thrown upon the eye, will produce ap-
probable currents in various parts of
the body and of varying intensity.
Basing their conclusions on such sig
nif1cant facts as these, specialists in in
creasing numbers are coming to regard
this great force of the universe. this
life force, this nerve force, electricity.
in short, as one of the most important
agencies in medicine, and as a substi-
tute in many instances for the drugs
and decoctions hitherto regarded as
necessary in the treatment of disease.
ELECTRICITY AS A HEALTH PRE-
SERVER.
And there is coming about a percep-
t1ble change in the way of viewing
bodily conditions, and movement to-
wards the ancient wisdom of the orien-
tails, who have maintained for centuries
that the proper business of doctors is
not so much to combat disease as to
maintain health and let the body do it's
own combating
That electricity will do much to main
tain health cannot be seriously cues
toned. 1t will warm the body better
than a bed; it will knead the flesh and
muscles better than the most skillful
massage operator; it will give exercise
with all the glow and fatigue of a
horseback ride or a football scrimmage:
it will calm the nerves and induce
sleep.
Psychologists tell US that. the human