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

taking the electrode that was on the sciatic nerve, and placing it farther down, at the heel or ankle, the knee having been pre- viously bent, the leg was extended with such violence that it very nearly overthrew one of the assistants, who endeavored in vain to prevent the extension. He also produced contractions of the diaphragm, which caused an artificial respiration. Thus, in the early part of this century, the bodies of a very great number of criminals were subjected to a wide variety of experiments, by Ritter, Rossi, Wassali, Julio, Matteucci, and Wilson Philip. The former, indeed, thought he had discovered that electricity of the positive pole increases vitality, whilst that of the negative pole diminishes the vital forces ; and that the former swells the muscles and fortifies the pulse, while the latter relaxes the muscles and reduces the pulse. He also fancied he found a difference in the action upon the organs of sense. Dr. Philip, by dividing the eighth pair of nerves in living animals, believed that he might substitute the artificial electric current of galvanism for the natural nervous force, as in digestion, secretion, <fec. ; while others advanced the idea plainly that nervous force is simply and only an action analogous to that of voltaic electricity, independent of vital force, — in fact, as con- stituting- vitality itself. But all these were evidently hasty conclusions from mere semblances, or from false premises, to which the author only al- ludes because still quoted as if true. We will therefore leave aside, as much as possible, all speculations and curious researches whose results are now contested, to occupy ourselves in a more precise and scientific manner, consulting only those physicians and philosophers who have been especially eng-ag-ed with this particular branch of research. Most of all do we wish to learn the real actions of the different electric currents, and the various modes of employing those currents upon the different parts of the living human organism, and to confine ourselves mainly to stating, as concisely as can be to be clear, the positive facts that the now multiplied experiences by competent men in actual clinical practice, have thus placed beyond all kind of doubt. Inasmuch, therefore, as physiological action may be consid-