Electro-physiology and electro-therapeutics : showing the best methods for the medical uses of electricity / By Alfred C. Garratt.
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tion, on the ground of supposing it either gouty or rheumatics, will necssarily fail in the attempt. They may keep their patient under treatment, trying this or that medicine for many months, the malady meantime fluctuating, hut showing no signs of yielding; if recovery does take place, it will probably be at some remote date, and that perhaps after several years ; the suf- ferer apparently being in no degree indebted for his recovery to the aid offered by the medical treatment,or liniment appliances. Such cases reflect no credit upon the healing art; yet the fault lies not so much in the art itself, as in the person who professes to apply its resources." A patient is laboring under supposed sciatica ; now, if it is truly so, whether neuralgic or inflammatory, you will find that if you press firmly near the posterior edge of the trochanter ma- jor, or near the superior spinous process of the ilium, or at the upper part of the ischiatic notch, in all probability not only will the point so pressed exhibit tenderness, and perhaps pain, but the patient will tell you that a distinct pain also shoots down the limb, and rcqiicst you not to repeat it. These arc the more usual results of such investigations in sciatic affections. There is, moreover, a kind of sciatica that now and then presents, which, if not correctly understood, will be difficult to cure; for it is truly associated with disease of the roots of the anterior crwral nerve, the more prominent symptoms of pain and im- paired muscular action manifesting themselves mostly in parts to which the branches of this nerve are distributed, and at the same time the great sciatic nerve appearing to be exempt from disease, i. e., at first, but some time afterwards (mark this) giving evidence of some trouble there, particularly after any considerable or unusual amount of exercise. But when it is remembered that both the anterior crural nerve and the great sciatic nerve receive their originating branches for their structure from the same fourth pair of lumbar nerves, and arc, indeed, but the prolongation of the sacral ganglia, it is seen that there is a very close relation between these two great anterior and posterior nerves of the lower limb. The roots of these great nerves therefore perforate the psoas muscle, and this may