Electro-physiology and electro-therapeutics : showing the best methods for the medical uses of electricity / By Alfred C. Garratt.
505/740

polarity" for there is ample evidence that the vesicular sub- stance alone, here, may be subservient to this purpose. It lias been fairly demonstrated, by Stilling, and Van Decn, " that both sensory and motor impressions can be communicated from one portion of the spinal cord to another, even after complete sections are made in such a manner as to leave the two portions of spinal cord only connected by the gray substance. In no other way, indeed, can we account for the radiation and multi- plication of impressions in cases where there is a certain state of exalted (abnormal) polarity and activity of the " automatic " spinal centres. "Indolence and neglect of duty" says Dr. George Johnson, " is a most prolific source of a class of serious and grievous nervous affections. This habitual want of doing, more often occasions menial disquietude, and unhappiness, than do even excessive labor and fatigue. Those who habitually ' kill time' are not unfrecuiently 1 Haunted much by visions strange, — The spectres manifold of murdered hours ;' for the infringement of moral laws brings discomposure, unrest, and anguish upon the mind, just as surely as a physical injury gives pain to the body. Both these classes of pain and suffer- ing, are protective and beneficial as well in their design as tendency." Electro-Muscular Diagnosis. Electro-muscular explorations, when carefully and under- standingly performed, are very important Diagnostic, as well as Prognostic means now at the hand of physicians, to be em- ployed in cases of paralysis that present either for treatment or simply to learn the prospects of a treatment. The loss of electro-muscular contractibility (when properly tested) enables us, first, to distinguish those paralyses that arc due to an invisible or otherwise undiscoverable cause, — as, for instance, where there is a local, idiopathic, or traumatic lesion of the