Electro-physiology and electro-therapeutics : showing the best methods for the medical uses of electricity / By Alfred C. Garratt.
569/740

ently consisting of adhesions amongst themselves, degeneration, atrophy, and adipose transformations, which render the aggre- gate muscle incapable of elongation by ordinary moderate me- chanical extension. This state of " structural shortening '* of muscle may be known by the long duration of the contraction ; by the sensation of rigid, inelastic, cord-like resistance that is offered to the hand of the examiner ; and by the shrunken, wasted condition of the muscles, volition not necessarily being entirely absent in such. Those who are familiar witli the physical condition of tlic parts concerned in deformities have no difficulty in recognizing when structu- ral shortening- of the given muscles does or does not exist. I would sug- gest to those who are not adepts, that if, after employing as tests the signs which I have enumerated, they still remain in doubt, they may, when there is no objection to anassthesia, subject the patient to the influence of ether inhalation. During the insensibility, a contracted joint always becomes flex- ible, i. e., so long as structural sbortcn- ing does not exist. But if the mus- cular fibres have actually undergone interstitial degeneration and shorten- ing, the joint then will not be bent or extended without violence and lac- eration of fibres. Fig. 95 shows " Drake's Spinal Apparatus for Cur- vature," and " Drake's Apparatus for Paralyzed Limbs," and particularly adapted to cases of spasmo-paralyris in children, both retaining the with- ered and contracted limb in place, and at the same time enabling the Fig. 95. patient to exercise, and even walk,