"WE NEED NOT BE OLD"

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LIII, Issue 16234, 7 January 1927, Page 9

"WE NEED NOT BE OLD"

HUMAN BATTERIES OF ELECTRICITY

VITAL SPARK

LONDON, Nov. 10.

''We need not be old men," said Dr. Bernard Hollander in his presidential address on "Life and Mind" to the Ethological Society. "The infirmities of old age," he added, "are not essential. "Electricity is generated in the lungs with every inspiration, and is conveyed by the bloodstream to every cell in the body, the brain receiving* the largest supply, and representing the seat of the highest .potentials. ''No two persons are exactly alike, but the average elect rj-motive force of a living human being has been estimated to live millivolts, the measure being taken trom hand to hand through the coiis of a sersitive galvanometer by means of suitable electrodes.

CHIEF POWER STATION

"The human body," he continued, "is a machine run by 28,000 million electric cells, each -cell being a little wet battery, with negative and positive poles. In fact, Professor J. W. Orile. the famous surgeon of Cleveland, U.S.A., told Us at the International Congress in London: 'Man is simply a mechanism run by electricity and chemical reaction.' Orile also showed us that the brain is the 'chief power station. Each of its 9200 millions Of tiny cells is a miniature storage battery, and our nerves are wires equipped With sub-power stations and something akin to switches and, keys to check or block or release electricity flowing through them and operating the motors ■oi the missies and the organs; and practically every other cell in our body has a part in.the creation and distribution of this electricity, which is literally the vital spark. I "When it, is known that electrivitv plays such a prominent part in all vital processes it is not an unwarrantable assumption to suppose that, if properly applied, it may prove to be a most useful curative agent. BRAIN EXHAUSTION.

"In certain forms of backwardness of children and in brain exhaustion of adults, if wiselv applied, electricity can be made to do wonders. Not onlv in 'the various forms of paralysis, hi* for sbasms of the muscles, for sciatica, neuralgia, and other painful affections, for the relief of headache, insomnia, in obesity, as well as for the improvement of general health, electrotherapy will often succeed when other measures have failed. _,:•-. "There is no doubt that electricity. especially when combined with radium emanation, is one of the most beneficent nerve tonics that we possess. In all states of nervous depression, as from long mental strain or overtaxed bodily powers, it has.-a.inost invigorating and refreshing effect."