Good day Ladies and Gentlemen;
Apologies to be bothering such a fine group of scientists as yerselves with dis long post, but the Doc has me scrounging about for another bit of knowledge and I thunk that y’all might know something about it. She heard of this club and simply assumes that she is a member (and I be wanting to stay above snakes for a while long so I didn't say nothing 'bout that!).
Bit of background.
‘Course everyone here knows ‘bout Haller's ‘irritability’ concepts and how those were refined by Unzer’s neuromuscular classification (voluntary, involuntary, and unconscious). Unzer’s decapitated toad experiments further showed da point that the ‘animal spirits’ could keep headless animals moving. With the ever-improving Leyden jars more such experiments were devised by brilliant genius like Caldani, Musschenbroek, or the ever popular Nollet (who else would line up two miles of men to see if everyone gots shocked when each end o’ the line touched the poles of a Leyden jar) to investigate reanimation.
In his famous series of experiments, Galvani managed to work out an apparatus to gather atmospheric electricity to contract frog legs and; of course, his nephew worked with newly decapitated criminal heads and electricity eliciting many facial movements (until petty minded obstructionists made the practice illegal in 1804).
This leads me to Krüger (his work needs no description) and specifically to his student Dr. Kratzenstein. Using frictional methods to produce electricity, his work with the reanimation of paralyzed phalanges is impressive; however, we be interested in details concerning his work with human ‘electro-sleep’ (the relaxation and/or unconsciousness stimulated by a very low voltage electric current passing through da brain) first mentioned in a 1743 letter and later in his 2nd edition 1745 book.
What we be looking for.
So we be looking for any clues as to the spacial and/or temporal locations of public or private copies of Kruger and Kratzenstein’s 1744 (first edition) pamphlet on the therapeutic uses of electricity.
As per private correspondence, this edition contains the uncensored experimental drawings and descriptions of remote (i.e., no physical connections) electro-sleep induction. Such a device would be of great aid in the collection of undamaged field specimens and possible other scientific uses.
Unfortunately, I be unsure of the title of the first edition (as all public copies are missing, dangnabit) but the second edition (1745) is titled, “Von dem Nutzen dcr Electricitat in der Arzneinissenschaft.”
As I have been searching I thunk that Edward Cave’s magazine (first issued ‘bout 1731 using the nom de plume of Sylvanus Urban), titled ‘Gentleman’s Magazine’ might be a possible lead. This would not be the best source for technical information but it does cover medical breakthroughs of the time so if someone knows any issue(s) that discuss Kratzenstein or Kruger that would be most helpful.
Thank ye kindly for any assistance you might offer the Doc.
