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

when the animal is killed by other means. Claude Bernard is far from believing, however, that this is evidence of the inde- pendent irritability of the muscles; but, rather, refers the phe- nomenon to such as where the nerves die in direction from the centre to the periphery, as evidently occurs in some central pal- sies, and also where there is death from chloroform. This, how- ever, is questioned. Yet we can easily perceive that in any case where there is this partial effect or state, we shall find the elec- trization of the muscle substance to produce more decided effect than can be produced even from the exact nerve border point. But it must be foreseen that the simple local excitement of the muscles by electric treatments, or by any other means, will never subject them again to the dominion of the will, so long as the nerve conductors from the central organs to the periphery are un-toned, and unless they are quickened by some natural, or adequate artificial action. To this end, Duchenne's method sometimes fails. Operating through the exact muscle border points, even, is not always a sufficiently sure exercise of the large nerve trunks. My custom is, therefore, in examining such cases, not to omit tracing from place to place the course of the largest nerves upon which the diseased part depends. At a meeting of the Academy of Sciences, in Paris, M. Arago read the following notes from the illustrious Baron Humboldt, relative to muscular action and animal electricity : — " Neither the jeers of certain editors on German credulity, nor the negative results obtained by two of our first natural phi- losophers, have changed my convictions regarding the influence of muscular action on the movement and direction of the gal- vanic needle. We have recently repeated our experiments at M. Dubois-Reymond's, and I invited M. Mitscherlich to attend, knowing his great dexterity in the management of delicate in- struments. On giving tension to the muscles of the left arm, the needle was instantly made to move by M. Mitscherlich, and that in the direction predicted by M. Reymond, namely, indicat- ing a current from the hand to the* shoulder of the arm which was in action. On stiffening his right arm, M. Mitscherlich found that the needle moved in an opposite direction, and