Until two or three years ago electric baths were only used by charlatans, but of late they have been studied from the scientific standpoint, and their real value determined. Water is a conductor, but still an inferior conductor, of electricity. When both poles are placed in the water—a little saline, or slightly acidulated— and the patient immersed, the current passes through the water interposed, and hence the resistance to be overcome will be directly as the thickness of the stratum. Such an application, the water being the medium of communication, has the same character as general faradization, or galvanization. It is a dipolar electric bath. When one electrode enters the water, and the other is in contact with the patient, the bath is monopolar. In the practice of charlatans it is usual, if the patient complains that he feels nothing, to place a metallic electrode on the skin, when, of course, a lively sense of burning is experienced.

The objections to electric baths are the necessary trouble to apply them; the enormous resistance of the water; the inequality in tension, and the lack of precision in every case as to the point at which the application is to be made, as to the sudden and considerable variations in the quantity of the electricity furnished, and the unscientific character of the method in every aspect. To these objections may be added the association of electric baths with the most baleful charlatanry. If, indeed, the method possessed such conspicuous advantages that considerations of that character could be disregarded, then it could be placed among our therapeutical resources without compunctions.