Electro-physiology and electro-therapeutics : showing the best methods for the medical uses of electricity / By Alfred C. Garratt.
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other mode of support. The most considerable solid support to the uterus is the vagina. These two conditions lead to an easy understanding of many phenomena of the minor motions of the uterus, called misplacement, or displacement. The failure of the vaginal support through relaxation (amounting sometimes to a sort of paralysis) of the vaginal tube, and often accom- panied by a similar condition of the rectum, leads to the most complete displacements of the womb while healthy in itself, and leads also to all the ordinary symptoms of uterine ailment in the most aggravated forms, which are curable only on conditions of curing the vagina. Again, enlargement, and consequently increased weight, of any part of the uterus, leads to a falling or sinking of it. Enlargement of the cervix leads to depression of the organ. Enlargement of the body, causing top-heaviness, leads to retro- version or anteversion, or flexion. It is nearly certain that the ligaments of the uterus have almost no function as ligaments, but quite the reverse ; and that in those cases of displacement where symptoms of dragging are ascribed to them, there is, in fact, no such dragging at all. The xiterus has free motions afforded to it by these ligaments, which are not to be put on the stretch by any ordinary misplacement. It must also be remem- bered in regard to uterine flexions, that the organ is sometimes so softened as not to be capable of bearing its own weight — a circumstance sometimes connected with leucorrhoea, and symp- toms of pain." (See p. 475, and Appendix E, 2; F, 2.) Here, evidently, are a class of ills peculiar to females, that, in a rational sense, ought to be greatly amenable to the power of electro-therapeutics, — and so they are. If I should report the contents of my case-book under this head, it alone would make a volume of no small interest. Amenorrhea. The methodical use of electricity is of inestimable value as an emmenagogue in young women, where the menstrual function has not appeared, or where it is not fully established in conse-