Page:The Harveian oration - delivered at the Royal College of Physicians, London, June 29th, 1867 (IA b22315263).pdf/18

16 that we may discern that they are actually within our reach, we may instance, first, the almost newly invented sciences of electricity and galvanism, and of meteorology emanating from these two; all which bear especially on the last-named topic, viz., the nature and course of epidemics.

In this field of inquiry considerable vantage ground has already been established, and a luminous and succinct review of the present position of the question as to the true nature of light and electricity, has been drawn up by M. Saveney. He traces the course of investigation which has been pushed beyond the bare phenomenon of the electric spark, and of the appearances which that presents, even to the actual nature of the fluid of which the spark gives evidence.