Electro-physiology and electro-therapeutics : showing the best methods for the medical uses of electricity / By Alfred C. Garratt.
598/740

and directed upwards, the woman not being able to bring the apex of the tongue in contact with the teeth. Deglutition and general health good. " Professor Sedillot suspected here a paralysis of the muscles connected with the cordce vocales. Inductive electricity was therefore prescribed. One pole was placed alternately on differ- ent parts of the tongue, while the other electrode was on the mastoid process, or under the lower jaw, or on the superior and posterior region of the neck, or on some part of the face. Some pain was thus experienced, but the tongue moved more freely. The first sitting lasted merely a few minutes, and was not re- peated until one week after, owing to a severe headache which had followed the application. After the second sitting, the tongue could be protruded between the lips, and the patient be- gan to talk distinctly, though the voice had not, as yet, quite returned. Pain was experienced in the region of the styloid process and the hyoid bone, when efforts at articulation were made, depending, very probably, on the fatigue of the muscles which had but just recovered their tone. The improvement be- came more and more manifest by a few more sittings; and a fortnight after the last seance, the patient returned home, per- fectly restored. Several cases of recovery of speech by the means of electricity have been recorded, but none in which the affection was of such long standing, and then so rapidly cured." The author could add here quite a list of cases of nervous or atonic " loss of voice," both in the hysterical and others, that have been successfully treated and cured by the application of electro-magnetic currents to the throat, tongue, and parts affected. Cold air blowing directly upon the uncovered neck appears to have been the cause of this affection in some of these cases, while various debilitating causes produced the affection in oth- ers. Over-singing, or going immediately into the cold after speaking or singing, bad dentistry, or slight chronic bronchitis appears to have preceded one and another troublesome case. Dr. H. I. Bowditch sent to me the past winter a patient with complete aphonia for electrical treatment — a Mrs. K., twenty- 49*