Electro-physiology and electro-therapeutics : showing the best methods for the medical uses of electricity / By Alfred C. Garratt.
591/740

of the back not so urgent; she also soon passed better nights, sleeping three or four hours together soundly; the attacks re- turned on two or three occasions afterwards, always just before the approach of the catamenia. The lower extremities, how- ever, continued useless, and without any return of sensibility, and she had, as usual, to be carried by her attendant from room to room. I now commenced to apply galvanism, with a view of restoring the use of her limbs. At first the shock of a very powerful battery was not felt on placing one pole to the sacrum and the opposite one to any part of the leg below the knee ; but after a few trials I found one isolated spot, about the circumfer- ence of a shilling, over the outer part of the tibia, a few inches below the knee, sensitive to its effects. Continuing its use every day, the feeling seemed to radiate day by day downward, over the whole of the external part of the leg to the ankle, the inner part of the leg remaining, as before, completely unaffected by the electric current; the sensibility, however, soon returned here likewise, and extended gradually to the extremity of the second toe. Immediately after the next seance, I learned with satisfac- tion, that soon after my leaving the room, my patient got up very coolly and walked across the room, and indeed over the whole house, unattended or supported by any one. This hap- pened on the 12th October, since which she has continued to take regular walks out of doors for considerable distances, and is rapidly improving in all other respects." As regards the actual seat of this disease, it in all probability was connected with some congested state of the spinal veins; and, indeed, it does not seem very difficult to imagine why this state of things should occur, if we carefully examine the anatomical arrangement and structure of the venous system of the spinal cord. Thus, according to Breschet, there is every thing here calculated to favor stagnation of the blood. 1. The veins are deprived of valves, thinner, and much more delicate than in any other part of the body. 2. They are relatively very numerous, subdivided, and tor- tuous ; so that each spinal nerve may be said to be literally encircled and bathed in venous blood, as they penetrate in the intervertebral foramina.