Electro-physiology and electro-therapeutics : showing the best methods for the medical uses of electricity / By Alfred C. Garratt.
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other portion of the nerve. Dr. Valleix, by special research, thought he had demonstrated "four several points " on the course of a given nerve that are most likely to be the seat of nexiralgia, or, rather, where the neuralgic pain is more liable to be manifested. According to him, the four marked points are as follows: — 1. " The first point where a nerve is apt to show pain, is at the place where the nerve emerges from the bony canal through which it passes : the nerve is affected here, and here it is tender to pressure ; but the neuralgic suffering may be ascribed by the patient to this point, or elsewhere along the course of that nerve. 2. " The second point is where the nerve trunk suddenly be- comes more superficial, or runs along near the integument. 3. " The third point, that is prone to show this pain, is tvhere the nerve branches traverse the muscles to reach and become ul- timately distributed superficially in the skin and fascia.* 4. " The fourth point is tvhere the terminal nerve twigs are spread out to be lost in the integuments." Now, it is important to notice that this most valuable informa- tion, although not perfect, puts us on the right track, and enables us to find, usually, the exact place, where the tenderness from gentle pressure indicates the nature of the affection, and the propriety of local applications. "We notice that Dr. Duchenne, of Bologne, as also M. Brown- Sequard, and others, are lately disposed to regard neuralgia as a veritable " discrasia" much like that in gout and rheumatism, which in one person determines to the neurilemma, more particu- larly along the larger nerve trunks, and so causing true neural- gic pains ; while, in other persons, this discrasia has an election for the great toe and the condiles of the joints, and so produ- cing that other class of very peculiar pains which characterize a fit of the gout; and yet still, in other persons this discrasia has rather an affinity for the ligaments of joints, bursa of the ten- dons, and the periosteum of the bones, which characterizes the * The author defines this point, and some others, still more closely.