- Email: [email protected]
"THE ELECTRIC LADY."
926 readers of the disclaimer just quoted that its character is in truth exculpatory. It is the counter-protest of a featherwearer, evidently not a technical expert, and it principally deals with what is unexceptionable in the feather trade. The possibility of cruel methods being used in this business is not denied, and we fear there is reason to believe that these, if happily less common than they were, still exist and find employment. If the humming-bird as an ornament is obsolete-which we question-the aigrette is not, and we cannot doubt that the Selborne Society’s appeal against the killing of birds during the breeding season is suggested by the well-known conditions under which this form of decoration is obtained. In any case the institution of a close time for birds while breeding, and the prevention of their wholesale slaughter at other times, are measures of protection which can never be objected to, even by the fashionable, if they are also humane. -
"THE ELECTRIC LADY." IN the early years of the eighteenth century, whilst Du Fay and the Abbe Nollet watched with astonishment ’’ the first sparks that were ever drawn from the living body," and long before Kruger had conceived the idea of electro-thera-
peutics, or Kratzenstein had given that idea form, electrical phenomena were attracting much attention. Many earnest experimenters were investigating the "thing" which, since the days of Gilbert, had come to be called "electricity"; philosophers were gaining a first insight into its possibilities; At the same a new science was quietly winning its way. time the less serious portion of the society of the period, aware of the newly-discovered phenomena, was amusing itself by "drawing sparks" as "electric rain," or "the electric star," or, perhaps, occasionally in the form of
experience a not unpleasant electrical sensation-an effect, however, scarcely perceptible on the arm. But if the "operator places his foot upon the firegrate (thus making a better earth) the effect is stronger. If, however, the idle "
pole itself be well earthed" by being connected to a gasor water-pipe, then, if the person holding the electrode as above be insulated on glass and be touched as before on the arm, a distinct effect just short of muscular contraction is produced. By altering the amount of the insulation and varying the" earthing " of either pole a variety of electrical effects are obtainable. Muscular contractions of a widely varying strength and cutaneous stimulation of every degree of intensity may be thus secured. RAILWAY AMBULANCE. THE public is indebted to Professor Annandale of Edinburgh for a valuable suggestion as to the appropriate means of providing for the surgical and medical emergencies of railway travel. According to the scheme proposed railway companies should devote certain carriages to ambulance work, and these, furnished with all needful appliances, should be stationed at certain points and transferred when required to the scene of an accident. The idea is not an altogether new one. Something of the kind has been already instituted both in this country and in America. We are all familiar with the fact that railway companies employ for certain purposes their own staffs of medical officers, while many employes are con. versant with ambulance work, and suitable apparatus has been accumulated at various stations and is in some cases carried on trains in case of need. The extension of this admirable system, and its reduction to the simplest, most practical, and most economical methods consistent with efficiency still remain for accomplishment. The details of Professor Annandale’s plan are perhaps hardly so simple as might be desired. To our mind the whole question divides itself for practical solution into two main sections-service at stations and service on the line in case of accident. A sufficiency of ordinary surgical appliances ; a subsidised local practitioner, or more than one if needful, paid a fixed fee for each service rendered ; a duly instructed body of employésevery railway servant should be able to render first aid-would satisfy all usual requirements in the former case. Accidents on the line should be provided for by a like arrangement, with the difference that needful instruments, &c., should be carried in the guard’s van, or preferably in a part of some compartment in the middle of the train ; while medical aid should be summoned wherever available at a fixed charge, as in police cases. The above plan is subject, of course, to modification ; but it appears to us to present a fair example of the method most likely to meet the several conditions essential to a highly desirable reform.
the "electric kiss." At the end of the nineteenth century electrical science has made an amazing progress-a progress, however, with which its more frivolous developments seem scarcely to have kept pace. They have, it is true, got beyond the stage of the frictional machine, but it cannot be said that the entertaining young man of the period yet knows how to conjure playfully with currents of "Teslaic" frequency or to amuse an audience by a skilful adaptation of the Hertzian wave. The penny shocker " is, from the electrical standpoint, a painfully coarse experience of a coil current, and even "the electric lady " of these latter days is, on the whole, a very poor thing. "She is found to be so highly charged with animal electricity that when she immerses her hand in water anyone placing a finger in the bowl at the same time experiences a shock." About the latter there can be no question ; the sensation is that of an unmistakable induction current. Neither is it to be denied that she is "charged with electricity." In other words, she is connected with one pole of a large coil kept carefully out of sight and hearing. She places her hand in OPERATIONS FOR THE SUSPENSION OF THE RETROFLEXED UTERUS. water ; a second person standing " to earth " and doing the THE third volume of the Johns Hopkins Hospital Reports same offers a passage to the current through the body, and a fall of potential is the result ; but there is no obvious means contains a paper under this heading by Dr. Howard A. This may surprise those who Kelly. He objects to the terms "venti°ofigationand of completing the circuit. work only with the ordinary medical coil, but anyone accus- "hysteropexy" as applied to these operations, because in tomed to larger coils and to so-called "idle pole" work is his experience some months after the operation the uterus is found not to be fixed, but, on the contrary, to be freely aware that under such circumstances no metallic connexion with the other pole is necessary. The circuit is completed movable in a position of anteflexion ; it appears to have no vid the body of the second person through the ground and so direct organic connexion with the abdominal wall except Dr. Kelly suggests back to the second pole; and the more effectively the latter is by long, attenuated adhesions. " earthed " the more palpable will be the effects in question. "suspensio uteri" as a suitable name for the operation. This un-polar method is from its medical aspect something He considers that there are two methods by which the more than a mere experiment. It affords a very serviceable uterus may be efficiently suspended-firstly by two ligatures method of electrisation. If a person lightly insulated and of silk or silkworm gut passed on either side through the holding an ordinary moistened electrode attached to one peritoneum and subjacent tissue about 2 cm. from the pole of the secondary of a large coil be touched on the fore- abdominal incision and parallel to it, and then round each head by a person standing " to eartb," the former will utero-ovarian ligament respectively, when they are tied,
"THE ELECTRIC LADY." IN the early years of the eighteenth century, whilst Du Fay and the Abbe Nollet watched with astonishment ’’ the first sparks that were ever drawn from the living body," and long before Kruger had conceived the idea of electro-thera-
peutics, or Kratzenstein had given that idea form, electrical phenomena were attracting much attention. Many earnest experimenters were investigating the "thing" which, since the days of Gilbert, had come to be called "electricity"; philosophers were gaining a first insight into its possibilities; At the same a new science was quietly winning its way. time the less serious portion of the society of the period, aware of the newly-discovered phenomena, was amusing itself by "drawing sparks" as "electric rain," or "the electric star," or, perhaps, occasionally in the form of
experience a not unpleasant electrical sensation-an effect, however, scarcely perceptible on the arm. But if the "operator places his foot upon the firegrate (thus making a better earth) the effect is stronger. If, however, the idle "
pole itself be well earthed" by being connected to a gasor water-pipe, then, if the person holding the electrode as above be insulated on glass and be touched as before on the arm, a distinct effect just short of muscular contraction is produced. By altering the amount of the insulation and varying the" earthing " of either pole a variety of electrical effects are obtainable. Muscular contractions of a widely varying strength and cutaneous stimulation of every degree of intensity may be thus secured. RAILWAY AMBULANCE. THE public is indebted to Professor Annandale of Edinburgh for a valuable suggestion as to the appropriate means of providing for the surgical and medical emergencies of railway travel. According to the scheme proposed railway companies should devote certain carriages to ambulance work, and these, furnished with all needful appliances, should be stationed at certain points and transferred when required to the scene of an accident. The idea is not an altogether new one. Something of the kind has been already instituted both in this country and in America. We are all familiar with the fact that railway companies employ for certain purposes their own staffs of medical officers, while many employes are con. versant with ambulance work, and suitable apparatus has been accumulated at various stations and is in some cases carried on trains in case of need. The extension of this admirable system, and its reduction to the simplest, most practical, and most economical methods consistent with efficiency still remain for accomplishment. The details of Professor Annandale’s plan are perhaps hardly so simple as might be desired. To our mind the whole question divides itself for practical solution into two main sections-service at stations and service on the line in case of accident. A sufficiency of ordinary surgical appliances ; a subsidised local practitioner, or more than one if needful, paid a fixed fee for each service rendered ; a duly instructed body of employésevery railway servant should be able to render first aid-would satisfy all usual requirements in the former case. Accidents on the line should be provided for by a like arrangement, with the difference that needful instruments, &c., should be carried in the guard’s van, or preferably in a part of some compartment in the middle of the train ; while medical aid should be summoned wherever available at a fixed charge, as in police cases. The above plan is subject, of course, to modification ; but it appears to us to present a fair example of the method most likely to meet the several conditions essential to a highly desirable reform.
the "electric kiss." At the end of the nineteenth century electrical science has made an amazing progress-a progress, however, with which its more frivolous developments seem scarcely to have kept pace. They have, it is true, got beyond the stage of the frictional machine, but it cannot be said that the entertaining young man of the period yet knows how to conjure playfully with currents of "Teslaic" frequency or to amuse an audience by a skilful adaptation of the Hertzian wave. The penny shocker " is, from the electrical standpoint, a painfully coarse experience of a coil current, and even "the electric lady " of these latter days is, on the whole, a very poor thing. "She is found to be so highly charged with animal electricity that when she immerses her hand in water anyone placing a finger in the bowl at the same time experiences a shock." About the latter there can be no question ; the sensation is that of an unmistakable induction current. Neither is it to be denied that she is "charged with electricity." In other words, she is connected with one pole of a large coil kept carefully out of sight and hearing. She places her hand in OPERATIONS FOR THE SUSPENSION OF THE RETROFLEXED UTERUS. water ; a second person standing " to earth " and doing the THE third volume of the Johns Hopkins Hospital Reports same offers a passage to the current through the body, and a fall of potential is the result ; but there is no obvious means contains a paper under this heading by Dr. Howard A. This may surprise those who Kelly. He objects to the terms "venti°ofigationand of completing the circuit. work only with the ordinary medical coil, but anyone accus- "hysteropexy" as applied to these operations, because in tomed to larger coils and to so-called "idle pole" work is his experience some months after the operation the uterus is found not to be fixed, but, on the contrary, to be freely aware that under such circumstances no metallic connexion with the other pole is necessary. The circuit is completed movable in a position of anteflexion ; it appears to have no vid the body of the second person through the ground and so direct organic connexion with the abdominal wall except Dr. Kelly suggests back to the second pole; and the more effectively the latter is by long, attenuated adhesions. " earthed " the more palpable will be the effects in question. "suspensio uteri" as a suitable name for the operation. This un-polar method is from its medical aspect something He considers that there are two methods by which the more than a mere experiment. It affords a very serviceable uterus may be efficiently suspended-firstly by two ligatures method of electrisation. If a person lightly insulated and of silk or silkworm gut passed on either side through the holding an ordinary moistened electrode attached to one peritoneum and subjacent tissue about 2 cm. from the pole of the secondary of a large coil be touched on the fore- abdominal incision and parallel to it, and then round each head by a person standing " to eartb," the former will utero-ovarian ligament respectively, when they are tied,