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

ceptibility to the opening of a given in-working current, and to the closure of an opposite current, is increased, while, on the con- trary, it lias decreased to the closure of the former, and to the opening of the latter; that after a steady in-working of a strong current — say from two minutes to an hour — on a nerve trunk, then the muscles ramified by that nerve fall into the so-called " Tetanus of Ritter," but which is calmed by the closure again of the same current, or even by using a weaker current. But it will be strengthened by the reversed direction, even if we use a weaker current. At lower degrees of excitability, twitchings appear, and not tetanus, at the opening of the current, and at the closure of the opposite direction — the muscles remaining, on the contrary, quite at rest, both at the closure of the first and opening of the latter. In all these respects, then, we learn that the workings of the down-running current appear less con- stant, less permanent. In the year 1825, Dr. Sarlandierc proposed applying galvanic currents by the means of acu-pvneture needles, so as to bring the action of electricity more directly to the nerve or seat of pain. M. Magendie soon took up the matter with no little in- terest. He succeeded thus in effecting some wonderful cures, even where all other medication had failed, as in cases of amau- rosis, neuralgia, and paralysis. Next, MM. Guerord and Pravaz proposed treating aneurisms for radical cure by these same means. This high operation on a living man was first attempted by Professor Listen ; but the first successful operation of the kind was performed by M. Petre- quin, in a case of popliteal aneurism. For performing the electro-cautery, Middeldorpff, Stunheil, and Amussatt employed fine platinum wires, bent to a sharp an- gle, and rendered incandescent by quantity-galvanism. Provost, Alexander Dumas, Bonnet, Bence Jones, and others have oper- ated, and in some instances succeeded in decomposing calculi in the living human bladder, (but this is not advised as safe and practical.) Dr. Golding Bird and Mr. Spencer Wells have applied single pairs of silver and zinc plates for a voltaic action on the skin where placed, and for promoting the growth of healthy granulations in indolent ulcers, &c.