Electro-physiology and electro-therapeutics : showing the best methods for the medical uses of electricity / By Alfred C. Garratt.
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the eye muscles, and others, present to ocular demonstration numerous nerves of medium size, composed of such fibres as led him to believe that they are none other than nerves of sen- sation. I have frequently demonstrated on healthy young men, who were my students, the possibility of managing the electrodes, even with a moderate current, so as to bring the depressor anguli oris to a tetanic contraction without causing the least feeling, as they themselves stated. A man presented for treatment, or rather for advice as to the expediency of the electric treatment, whom I found to be afflicted with true apoplectic paralysis involving the portio dura. When testing the nerves and muscles of the face very gently, we found a small branch of the nerve supra orbicularis to run within a very trifling distance of the border point of the muscle frontalis; that is, front the entrance-spot of the motory nerve into that muscle. The two points are not half an inch apart; yet when one is touched by the electrode it occasions pain; when the other is touched there is a complete contraction of the whole muscle. The other muscles of the face are very similarly related, and for good reasons. It is thus that we discover, even on the smallest muscles, this pleasing result: that the currents of Galvanism, or of Faradaism, whose application insures the most powerful effects through the motory nerves — which are mani- fested by contractions— are also often the very ones that are productive of the least sensation or pain. The operator, after all, cannot entirely avoid the sentient nerves. It would, therefore, be really desirable to have some means of uniformly avoiding or alleviating this annoyance and real drawback in electric treatments. Dr. Dnchenne recom- mends the bringing of the two electrodes together before apply- ing them to the skin. This is well to be remembered. We may (as is my own method) also apply the electrodes first, and then introduce the soft iron within the helix very gradually, while using Faradaic currents; or if Galvanic currents, begin with the switch on a low key, or no key, and then by running up the scale until the number of batteries is indicated by the produced prickling sensation.