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"IN examining the progress of almost any branch of human knowledge, curiosity must meet with many repulses. By the time the attention of society is attracted to the accumulation of detached truths, which compose a science, it is often impossible to retrace its history. The real origin of most discoveries is obscured by antiquity, their authors have already sunk into oblivion, and important improvements are ascribed to different inventors...Electricity is however oppressed by few of these difficulties. With the exception of some small discoveries mentioned by ancient authors, this science derives its origin and all its improvements from the two last centuries." Jacob Green, An Epitome of Electricity and Galvanism, 1809
Galvanism was the use of batteries or "voltaic piles" to produce electric currents to be applied to the body. This was often done ornamentally (such as galvanic jewelry) or by gigantic banks of glass jars interconnected. The currents were used for both chemical and electrical effects on the body.
Faradism was the application of an interrupted current generated from one or more batteries and an electrical coil with a circuit breaker. This apparatus produced intense muscle contractions and shocks.
Click here for the Galvanic/Faradic Electricity Photo Gallery
