Electro-physiology and electro-therapeutics : showing the best methods for the medical uses of electricity / By Alfred C. Garratt.
602/740

of the neck, the face, and of the intracranial structures are congested ; the veins swell, the arteries throb ; the cerebral centre now becomes implicated. All is intelligible; all is explained.' " Affections, then, of the centre of the cerebral system are ex- tended to that of the spinal system — to the medulla oblongata by the dowmvard pressure; while affections of the spinal system are extended back again to the cerebrum by trachelismus! That all this is so is demonstrable. That it is always so, is, per- haps, what I ought not to assert. And does it not constitute a beautiful specimen of the physiology of disease ? Such is the whole of our recent views of epilepsy, and of the class of con- vulsive diseases as observed in the clinical wards. " Observe, now, with me, an experiment or two. I have re- moved the cerebral centre of this frog. Its spinal system is still most lively and energetic. I take and rub the toe between my thumb and finger ; you observe the almost convulsive move- ments produced ; I now touch the upper part of the spinal cen- tre with this needle, and you see the animal is thrown into the most violent convulsions ! Now, these experiments are types of disease; they are the types of epilepsy and other convulsive dis- eases. The first experiment is the type of eccentric epilepsy. The second experiment is the type of centric epilepsy. The first was induced by an excitant applied to a part of the spinal sys- tem at a distance from its centre ; the second, to that centre itself. So is it in epilepsy. So is it in convulsive diseases gen- erally in the human family. Do not these simple and illustra- tive facts interest you ? They are of the deepest interest. Do you not now perceive how dentition, and gastric, and enteric, and uterine irritation may excite spasms or convulsions, or even epilepsy ? " You see, again, the violent convulsions which I excite by touching the spinal centre of this frog by this needle. Such is the dire state of things in centric epilepsy, whether this be of organic origin, or have been organic in its course; whether it be congenital on the one hand, or inveterate on the other. The cases of epilepsy which occur in private practice are, for the