Electro-physiology and electro-therapeutics : showing the best methods for the medical uses of electricity / By Alfred C. Garratt.
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that ovaritis is of more frequent occurrence on the left than on the right side. But the search for the superficial character of the pain ought to prevent this error being committed. If we first relieve the muscular pain, we find we can press over the ovary without pain. The duration of hyperesthesia in this seat is very variable; the condition and exercise or habit of the geni- tal organs, as also the amount of any sort of exertion or of re- pose taken by the patient, vastly influencing this result. These patients are often much distressed by this pain, being led to believe it to be indicative of some uterine disease. (G, Note 4.) VII. 3Ielyafgia (a limb) is the term applied to painful muscular hyperesthesia of the superficial muscles, and sometimes of the deep-seated muscles of the extremities. The existence of such pain, particularly in hysterical females, has been noticed by authors only in a vague manner. Among my four hundred cases, only fifty-eight examples of it occurred; of these both upper and lower extremities were affected in thirteen of them; the upper alone in twenty-one; and the lower alone in twenty-four. It varies in degree from a mere disagreeable sensation to most severe suffering, destroying all repose, and, if not relieved, it even gives rise to fever. In spite of the most unfavorable appearances, however, it quite disappears, sooner under the influ- ence of correct treatment, or later, perhaps, spontaneously. It cannot be confounded with neuralgia, seeing that in two thirds of the cases the locality of the pains does not correspond with the origin of the nerve branches distributed to the muscles affected; while from true neuralgic pains arising from affections of the nerve trunks, nerve branches, or centres, muscular hyperesthesia is distinguished by its being aggravated simply from pressure on the muscles. (See Notes A, B, C, p. 475, and Appendix.) The distinction of this affection from rheumatic myosalgia is often more difficult. The diagnosis here must be drawn from the nature of the pain and the attending circumstances. The pain in hyperesthesia is usually excessively intense, the slightest con- tact causing very severe suffering; while the muscular rheumatic pain is much less increased by pressure, and this, too, must be firmer in order to produce it. The hysterical pains of this sort 33