Electro-physiology and electro-therapeutics : showing the best methods for the medical uses of electricity / By Alfred C. Garratt.
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fixation that is frequently but slightly felt, or even utterly unfelt; that the suppression of this local irritation may as promptly as surely cure the patient, just as is done in cases of true epilepsy. In accordance with this view, he advises that the precise con- dition of all the surface and organs of the body should be most carefully inquired into. If the unfelt aura starts from some part of the skin, or from some organ not deep seated, — as the testicle, for example, — or some part of the mucous mem- brane near the skin, either the first " contractions " in a fit, or the most violent, or the most prolonged, are found in the neigh- borhood of the point of starting of the aura. If no indications of this can be furnished by the persons who have seen the fits, it will be well, says Dr. Sequard, to apply a very powerful gal- vanic current, with dry electrodes, on the various parts of the skin, about the time when the patient expects to have the ft. Ho says he has in this way discovered the very " point of departure " of the aura that had been entirely unfelt by the patient, and undiscovered by the medical attendant. If this test is resorted to, I would advise rather the employ- ment of electro-magnetic or magneto-electric currents, as strong as the patient can bear, using metallic ball electrodes as team electrodes, i. e., held side by side, and thus moved along over the suspected region, in the first instance, much as localized Faradaization ; but if no aura is thus " scared up," then the appeal can be made through reflex action, and this can be greatly multiplied by widely separating the electrodes, using larger ones on moistened skin, and directing the current for a few seconds inversely, and then as long directly. But these testing, " searching " applications should never be continued, in any epileptic case, at any one seance, more than two minutes. As regards the treatment of epilepsy, and kindred affections, therefore, we are to direct the most powerful " alteratives " of nervous nutrition, whether it be electric currents, setons, moxas, or shocks produced by the daily double-bath of first hot and then cold water, — aided by the nerve-polarizing or depolarizing medicine, such as iron, iodine, and sulphur; or silver, arsenic,