Electro-physiology and electro-therapeutics : showing the best methods for the medical uses of electricity / By Alfred C. Garratt.
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idence, we have the means of power put into our hands that can reach and restore not a few; for it may well be said, that for these, electro-therapeutics cannot be replaced by any other known remedy, except the miraculous. I have had under electrical treatment a large number of cases of rheumatic paralysis, and many with deposits, contractions, and atrophy ; and those of all stages, from the earliest symptoms of numbness, stiffness, and pains, to the older and atrophied cases with pseudo-anchylose and rigid con- tractions. Of these, my case book shows a very credible amount of restoring good accomplished, and that mainly by the pow- er of Galvanic andFaradaic treatment. But the ratio of cures — of time to produce the cure, (I mean a rheumatic cure, which is an approximation to complete restoration, with some liability to recurrence,) — this, in each case, is found to be nearly in pro- portion to the length of time the case had been existing, but precisely in ratio with the degree of tonic contraction and atrophy. But where the wasting is moderate, the an- chylosis is still a little flexible, and hence not complete, and the tonic contractions as yet are not great, or even if these all are ex- treme, but the case is recent, then there is the greatest probability that a well-directed and persevering methodic use of electro-ther- apeutics will solve out the whole difficulty. And even in the older cases of rheumatic urns- „**■ M- * Jie7°f*e Muscles on the Back of tbe cular atrophy and paralysis, the methodic Thigh. 1. Gluteus Medius. 2. Gluteus Magnus. 3. Fascia Lata covering the Vastus Ex- ternus. 4. Long Head of the Biceps. 5. Short Head of the Biceps. 6. Semitendinosus. 46* 7, 7. Semimembranosus. 8. Gracilis. 9. Edge of the Adductor Magnus. 10. Edge of the Sartorius. 11. Popliteal Space. 12. Gastrocnemius.