Dr. Loeb's paper created a sensation among the a.s.sembled scientists, as also did that of Professor A. P. Mathews, on "The Nature of the Nerve Stimulation and Alteration of Irritability." "Dr. Loeb's discoveries have revolutionized the basic principles of physiology," declared one of the scientists. "A greater part of the text-books on this subject will have to be rewritten to accord with the results of these new views of life phenomena." And Dr. G. N. Stewart, who presided at the meeting, eulogized Dr. Loeb and said, "He has given us an insight into the mechanics of living tissue which we never before have had. He has brought forward the science of electro-physiology, which has. .h.i.therto been despised, but which will now be accorded a respectable position."

Professor Garrett P. Serviss says: "This discovery of Dr. Loeb and Prof.

Mathews comes closer to the solution of the mystery of life than physiologists have ever before been able to approach, and is so fundamental and far reaching as to warrant the hope that we shall soon know what are the conditions and the limits of man's power to prolong his own life.

"The whole foundation of physiology and medicine may be reconstructed, and we may find that we possess a control over the phenomena of life more masterful than anybody has yet dared to dream. Briefly, it has been discovered that our nerves consist of what is called a colloidal solution--that is, matter resembling gelatin held in solution in water before it is jellied, and these colloidal particles in the nerves carry charges of positive electricity. When the nerve particles pa.s.s from the colloidal condition into the state of gelation, or become jellied, the nerve experiences a stimulation or becomes active. This is produced by the action of atoms or ions bearing charges of negative electricity.

"This explains the action of certain chemical substances when introduced into the human body, some of which tend to quiet the nerves and others to excite them. The nerve-quieting ions are those that bear charges of positive electricity, such as atoms of sodium, pota.s.sium, calcium and hydrogen, and tend to keep the colloidal particles of the nerves in a state of solution, so that the nerves remain inactive. The nerve-stimulating ions are atoms of such substances as fluorine and chlorine, which carry charges of negative electricity and cause the nerve particles to coalesce or become jellied, in which condition the nerve is active, the degree of activity depending upon the intensity of the stimulation. Death appears to be the result of the stagnation of the nerves, and this discovery may enable us to oppose the process that ends in death."

This throws a flood of light on other obscure problems, and offers an explanation of the effect of anaesthetics upon the human body. Anything that tends to keep the nerve particles in a state of solution quiets the nerves. Now, nerve particles are largely composed of fat, and anaesthetics dissolve fat. Hence anaesthetics produce the effect of positively electrified ions, preventing the nerve particles from coalescing and thus quiets the nerves. The action of whiskey in arresting the progress of snake poison is explained. The alcohol counteracts the coagulating tendency and keeps the nerves in a colloidal condition. It explains many other familiar facts, as why heat tends to quiet the nerves, and that chemical stimulation is identical with electrical stimulation, and solves the long standing puzzle of muscular contractility.

Dr. H. Preston Pratt, an eminent electro-therapeutic expert, says: "Dr.

Loeb's experiments have demonstrated that _electricity is life_--that the entire human organism is controlled by electrical forces. The twentieth century will prove electricity and not salt is the real life-giving principle.

"If this force is taken away, life ends, and, in the same manner, if this force is supplied the result is the immediate stimulation of the organic life.

"The necessary elements of life are taken into the body through the air and food, and the entrance of the essential elements into the blood sets the human battery into operation, and it continues to operate as long as the electrical forces are supplied to the blood. _The human body is of elements the same as a magnet and is built of smaller magnets or molecules._" This I have contended for many years. He continued: "To show the connection between human life and electricity, take an ordinary battery of chloride of ammonia or salammoniac and study its workings.

You will see that by the introduction of the element zinc the electrical current is found. The zinc is of positive polarity and so is the ammonia, while the chloride is electro-negative.

"The electro-positive zinc has greater electric affinity for the chlorine than the ammonia has, and consequently the ammonia is driven off and combined with chlorine, forming chloride of zinc. The result is the difference of an electric pull between the elements.

"All admit that the force of elements forms a part of the anatomic structure, and there must be electricity. When oxygen is taken into a body it excites the elements in the same manner as the negative chlorine attacks the zinc in the battery. The electrical circuit of the body is the circulating blood, and when the oxygen and the nitrogen are taken in through the lungs the electro-negative ions go in one direction. Sulphur and oxygen are electro-negative and the other elements of the blood are electro-positive; and consequently, when the nitrogen and oxygen of the air attack the blood through the medium of the air cells, we find that oxygen and sulphur pa.s.s in one direction, while the other elements which are electro-positive pa.s.s in the opposite direction. This action is electrolytic the same as if we apply a battery to the human body."

All this accords with my theory of electrical creation, and proves, as I have contended for many years, that man's body as well as the universe is an electric organism.

In my book "The New Cosmogony," published about five years previous to these discoveries, I laid down the broad proposition that nature or the Creator has never made but one pattern or type of a thing that exists, and that is the electro-magnetic. That suns and worlds, man and all animal and vegetable organisms, are electro-magnets. That electricity was physical life, and digestion and a.s.similation of food were purely electrical processes; while the five senses--seeing, hearing, tasting, smelling and feeling--were all electrical manifestations, seeing and hearing being a form of wireless telegraphy.

That the electric combination of positive and negative atoms weaves the visible structure that envelops the soul. The electric elements from the lungs and stomach enter into the blood, and set the human battery in organic operation and create and continue human life. Thus the beginning of life is an electric process, and the source of life is augmented and continued by absorbing electric energy from the air we breath, from the food we eat and water we drink, and not by the so-called thermal or heat digestive process, but in the same way as we extract electricity from coal and wood--by a species of electric transformation or combustion, like feeding a flame from the oxygen of the atmosphere.

The body is not only an electric machine or organism, but the exercise of every function is an electric process. And the derangement of any function, which we call sickness or disease, is an electric derangement.

Prof. Loeb and Dr. Mathews have shown how the body is woven of positive and negative atoms.

Prof. Lucian I. Blake, of the Kansas University, in his lecture, "Atoms and Their Electric Charges," shows how medicine affects the human body and how life could be started in an unfertilized egg by inserting an electric current. This was done by placing the white of the egg in a vessel containing salt, calcium and water, and turning an electric current into it. Life in this way can be raised to the fourth stage, he says.

Another interesting experiment was a comparison of the effect of electrical charges on the ferments of human blood, yeast, plant and platinum. The ferments mixed with water were placed in separate vessels, when the ions of each began to move about, causing bubbles to go to the top of the vessels. Ether was placed in the different vessels, and then a few drops of hydrocyanic acid, a deadly poison, were added. The ether, by having an opposite electrical effect to that of the acid, neutralized its effect.

So, in the case of all poisons, if it be known whether the electrical effect is negative or positive to that of the blood ions, an ion producing an opposite electrical effect will counteract the poison.

Prof. Blake says: "The reason ether prevents the pain of operations is because it stops the coagulation of the nerves. All atoms of matter are charged with electricity. All vital actions are always connected with electricity. All drug effects are brought about by electrical charges made with the meetings of the ions in the blood and those in the medicine."

How strongly does Prof. Blake sustain my theory when he says, "All atoms of matter are charged with electricity. All vital actions are always connected with electricity." He also shows how medicines affect the human body, how antidotes neutralize poison, why stimulants arouse electrical energy, and how narcotics stupify and deaden it.

Electricity, I contend, is the active, energetic and all-pervading ultimate force in nature, controlled by the still more refined and ultimate spiritual force. It is the medium and ever-active agent in evoking all visible forms and substances; the medium which produces all affinities and repulsions in matter, gyrating from the lowest to the highest elements and from globe to globe, and const.i.tutes the invisible controlling element whose results are known as laws. Electricity is the guardian and executive of the invisible laws of nature. It is the suspension bridge spanning the darkness and chaos of s.p.a.ce between suns and worlds.

Man is the product of the perfect unfolding of nature's invisible electric laws, and aggregate atomic elements; and unites within himself all the elements and forces of the combined and harmonious universe. He is an epitome of the universe and an atom of deity. His form, like all visible forms, is only the temporal combination of material substances woven by invisible electric force out of invisible ether. The thoughts of man's mind are the governing force of his organism. The thoughts of the Great Creative Mind const.i.tute the laws of nature and the controlling force in the electric organism of the universe. Man is a Soul clad in air.

The results of these thoughts of deity are the vast expanse of the universe and varied forms of animate and inanimate nature; just as the result of man's thoughts are the varied structures, temples and works of art, constructed by him upon the surface of the earth. All things man creates are the representatives of his thought, the outward expression of his soul. He creates nothing but what is a living evidence of his previous thought or concept. All things tangible are the living evidence of a soul--the invisible soul or spirit of deity and man. All material things are the forms of G.o.d's thoughts or man's thoughts, which is the interior cause, producing tangible effects. For the natural world is the spiritual unfoldment made manifest in matter by electric energy. But I must not consume s.p.a.ce by a repet.i.tion of these things. What the world wants is the truth, and we are discovering it at a very rapid rate. And if these theories are not the truth they are nearer to it than nine-tenths of the accepted truths of science.

The ancients knew little about their bodies, or the mysterious operations of physical life. They looked only at effects and the outside of things, and knew nothing of the invisible forces of nature. They regarded all the mysteries they could not understand as supernatural, as outside of nature, and produced by demons, wizards, necromancers, or their imaginary G.o.ds.

Their knowledge of their bodies was as limited as their knowledge of the universe, which they regarded as a little span of flat earth and bending sky; and they relied on incantations and prayers to restore the sick, and on the flight of birds and the entrails of beasts to reveal the mysteries of the future. They believed in obsession and deemed all sick, insane and diseased persons as possessed of demon spirits or devils, and their restoration to health or their right minds was called "the casting out of devils."

The ancients also believed every evil propensity was the prompting of some demon spirit that possessed the human body, and that there was as many devils as there were evil propensities. Mary Magdalene was possessed of seven devils, and the man who had more evil propensities than they could enumerate was said to possess a "legion of devils."

But the world is fast outgrowing the ignorance and superst.i.tion of the past and this is a fortunate and happy age in which to live. This is pre-eminently the age of electricity--of mind and invisible forces--as the past century was an age of matter. The whole world is feeling the electric thrill of a new life. New voices call us, new inspirations are in the air, new thoughts crowd upon the thinking mind. The reasoning soul catches whispers from the stars and celestial benedictions from the radiance of the sun. Man is a heaven-bound spirit in an electric body woven of dust and air, of infinite ether and eternal atoms, sifted through boundless s.p.a.ce, and tossed from suns to worlds; and he is climbing to loftier spiritual heights and a diviner atmosphere.

The great men of the past had false ideals. They were the ambitious conquerors, who despoiled their own race and deluged the world in blood.

Their thrones were built on pyramids of human skulls swimming in a sea of human blood and tears. Their triumphal march was heralded by the clanking chains of miserable captives, and the wailing cries of widows and orphans. For many ages human slavery, grinding poverty and abject misery were the common heritage of the despoiled ma.s.ses who lived in hovels, were made food for cannon, or were sold into bondage for debt, while a few fortunate rulers reveled in luxury and swayed despotic power. Up to the recent centuries the chief vocations of men were the soldier and the priest--the one for slaughter and the other to appease the G.o.ds.

But the evolving ages have changed the ideals of the world, and liberty and justice are no longer a dream; but "Peace hath her victories no less renowned than war." The time is near at hand when the ideals of men will be so exalted and their consciences so alive to the demands of love and justice that no man of wealth can sleep in his luxurious home or feast on choice viands and know of any human creature or dumb animal suffering from cold and want without first ministering to their needs. This is the law of love written in every enlightened heart, as it is written in the books of the New Testament.

Men are beginning to learn that the greatest thing in this world is not wealth, with its pomp and pride, though it may bring a thousand comforts. It is not religion, with its glorious dreams crowned with the promised beat.i.tudes of heaven, though martyred saints and prophets have given their lives to confirm its faith and hopes. It is not literature, with its gems of thought and flowers of divine fancy, which have charmed and inspired mankind from the days of Homer to those of Shakespeare and Tennyson. It is not science, with "learning's ample page," though she has transformed the earth, and produced a Gallileo and a Newton. It is not the wonders of mechanical genius, though we stand in awe before their marvels of grandeur and utility. It is not the beauty of inspiring art that lifts us to the alt.i.tudes of aesthetic joy. These are but the ideals and manifestations of that which is higher and greater, which is written in the soul of man as in a book.

Man is the greatest thing in this world--ah! in the universe next to Deity. He is the offspring of Omnipotence, the Child of the Sun, the inheritor of the universe. All suns and worlds, all life and s.p.a.ce are the playgrounds of his activities. He shall dwell in the home of Deity, stroll in the garden of the G.o.ds, bask in the radiance of central suns, recline on the daffodil meadows and wander in the elysian fields of paradise. He is at home in the measureless expanse of all ether and s.p.a.ce.

Wherever an atom vibrates or an electric current thrills, there he is the monarch of spiritual power, and can command the electric force that tosses suns upon their course and plays football with the stars. Man is no worm of the dust, he is the darling of the skies, the ruler of suns, the cherubim of celestial destiny clad in terrestrial ether and winged with the spiritual power of Omnipotence.

Who n.o.bly does must n.o.bly think, The soul that soars can never sink, And man's a strange connecting link Between frail dust and Deity.

CHAPTER VI

ELECTRICAL DERANGEMENT OF THE BODILY ORGANISM PRODUCES SICKNESS AND DEATH

I contend that man's body is an electric machine or organism, and electricity is its vital force and governing power, and all sickness is caused by the electrical derangement of the bodily organism. Electricity is the force which organized the body machine, which runs the body machine, and whose loss or deficiency cripples and finally destroys it.

Sickness is the impairment of some of the parts or functions of the body by reason of its failure to get its necessary and natural supply of electrical energy. This may be caused by an injury to some of its parts or by lack of proper air, food and nutrition containing the electric properties required. For air is an electric element from the life-giving sun, and vegetable food is the embalmed rays of the sun, and animal food is vegetable food embalmed in animal organism and brought one step nearer to electrical digestion, and both air and nutriment are necessary to supply vital electricity to the living organism. And while man can live without food forty days, he cannot live without air four minutes.

The great force and power which run the human or animal machine is the vitalizing air we breathe, the electric atmosphere in which "we live, move and have our being." It is as much a substance as the water in which the fish swim, though it is transparent to light, while water is only partially so.

The lungs are the great electric reservoirs of the body and take the electric current of the sun from the atmosphere as constantly and naturally as the electric wire takes the current from the battery or the dynamo.

Then it imparts electric energy to the blood and sends it as an electric current and fluid coursing through every part of the body, producing vitalizing life and growth, causing the heart valves to beat and pump with marvelous power, the pulse to throb, and the whole machine to pulsate, thrill and whir with electric life and energy.

Flammarion says three-fourths of a man's life energy and nourishment comes from the air. And Nicola Tesla says the time may come when man may learn to live on air alone, as do some kinds of vegetable and animal organisms. Man in time may learn to so mix the elements of the atmosphere to supply the needs of the body, that he may, by breathing it into his lungs, obtain all the essential elements to preserve its life and organism.

The oxygen of the air keeps alive the fire of physical life, and the body may be compared to a flame fed unceasingly by electric fire from the sun and atmosphere, according to the laws of electric combustion.

The want of oxygen or this electric energy from the air extinguishes the flame of life as it extinguishes the flame of a lamp.

The blood could not course through the veins with such marvelous speed if it were not for the electric energy imparted to it in the electric reservoir of the lungs; the heart valves could not throb with such wonderful force or the pulse keep its steady, unceasing beat but for the electric power imparted by the wireless electricity of the air.

Besides, the electricity of the air pa.s.ses through and through the pores of the body at every point, giving additional life and force, and every angle of the body draws electricity like the point of a lightning rod, and the legs, the arms, the toes and the fingers with the s.p.a.ce between them, const.i.tute horseshoe magnets of great efficiency.

A man's strength and endurance is measured by the electric atmosphere he draws into his lungs and the fuel or food he takes into his stomach or boiler. A man's stomach bears a similar relation to the body that the boiler and furnace does to the machine, and should be treated in very much the same way. It should receive only the fuel necessary to its usefulness, and the ashes and debris should be cleaned out every morning before building a fresh fire, as is done with every well kept furnace.

The lungs take in pure electricity from the air, while the stomach takes in compound electric elements, vegetable and animal, and converts them by the electric process of digestion and a.s.similation into blood and bone, nerves and tissue, and the two functions give vitality and growth to the whole body.

But the electric and controlling center of the bodily machine is the electric dynamo of the brain, to which is attached the spinal column with its nerve branches reaching out to all parts of the body, along which, as on connecting wires, the brain telegraphs its wish and will and governs the whole organism. Here the mind or soul dominates the brain and the brain dynamo dominates and controls the body. Through all the vicissitudes of life, until the final dissolution of the body, the telegrams from the brain running along the wires of the nerves control the muscles, the movements and all the varied utilities of the body. In other words, the mind controls the electricity of the brain, and the electricity of the brain controls the body.