sodium chlorid bath, 7 pounds to 40 gallons, at a temperature of
from 94 to 98 degrees F., lowered the pressure from 10 to 15 mm.
This is not different from the effect obtained from a fifteen minute
warm bath at from 94 to 98 degrees F., or a fifteen minute mustard
bath of the same temperature. In other words, the slight irritation
of mustard or of salt in a warm bath made no special difference in
the amount of lowering of the blood pressure. On the other hand, he
found that a fifteen minute calcium chlorid bath, 1 1/2 pounds to 40
gallons, at 94 degrees F., raised the blood pressure 15 mm.

The autocondensation treatment to lower the blood pressure is not so
satisfactory as it was hoped to be. The blood pressure can thus be
lowered, but it soon again rises, and probably generally more
rapidly than after the bath treatments, and in some persons it
causes considerable depression. Van Rennselaer [Footnote: Van
Rensselaer: Month. Cycl. and Med. Bull., November, 1912, p. 643.]
has reviewed this subject of high frequency treatment, and recalls
the fact that Nicola Tesla demonstrated, in 1891, the form of
electricity which we now term high frequency. High frequency means
more than 10,000 cycles per second, at which frequency muscles do
not contract and pain is not felt, whereas in medicine the frequency
of the currents used runs up into the hundreds of thousands, or even
into the millions. The French investigator, d'Arsonval, studied the
physiologic action of these high frequency currents and found that
the respiration and heart are made more rapid and the blood pressure
is reduced, while the intake of oxygen is increased and the carbon
dioxid excretion is increased. The temperature may rise. The
excretion of the urinary solids is mostly increased. Perspiration
may be caused, and he believes the glandular activities are
increased. In a word, metabolic changes in the body are made more