Electro-physiology and electro-therapeutics : showing the best methods for the medical uses of electricity / By Alfred C. Garratt.
696/740

ing and unsatisfactory. Extraction finally being done in such instances proves the only resource. Should there be associated inflammation of the gums with a carious tooth, in which the pulp has been destroyed in the manner which I here recom- mend, then the usual means for combating it must be resorted to, such as a leech or two applied to the gum, and repeated fomentations with warm water alone or warm milk and water, bran or hop poultice. For pain in the tooth itself, the mor- phine and mastic will be found quite sufficient." Urinary Bladder and Renal Calculi. Attempts have been repeatedly made to harmlessly dissolve calculi in the living urinary bladder. The first attempt appears to have been by Dr. Harle, of Norwich, England ; but the first report of actual treatment for this by electricity is by MM. Provost and Dumas. These trials were with a view to destroy- ing their state of aggregation ; for if the molecules of the cal- culi become friable, they would wash out. But after experi- ments on dead men, and on living dogs, and becoming satisfied that their method was to a degree susceptible of application, they perceived that it can present no advantage for the removal of calculi that are not saline compounds, such as, for example, the alkaline phosphates. It is therefore necessary beforehand to be satisfied as to the nature of the calculi in the case, even if otherwise feasible. By a series of elegant experiments by M. Bonnet, surgeon-in-chief of the Hotel Dieu at Lyons, he has shown in a satisfactory manner that electric currents have the power to convey acids or alkalies to the urinary calculi by the electro-chemical decomposition of a saline solution that has been previously thrown into the bladder, as when using the solution of nitrate of potassium, instead of simple water, with- out the powerful reagents being diffused in the urine that is contained in the bladder.. (See Appendix E, F, G.) Dr. Bence Jones pursued these researches by means of the steady galvanic stream, and concludes that the solution of nitrate of potash is for most cases, and on the whole, the most harmless