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

is that of A. The intensity of sound is as the intensity of the current and the state of the nerves, but the pitch is always the same. While treating the ear with electricity, and particularly if we employ galvanic currents, we may have, now and then, extra-polar workings, manifested by a metallic taste, or even by a flow of saliva if the current is strong or long continued, or if the nerves are in a state highly susceptible. By this unpurposed electro-physiological test, we ascertain that the chorda tympani is intimately connected with the sense of taste. This is corrobo- rated by clinical experience; for in some cases of palsy of the portio dura, there is also loss of taste on the same side with the paralyzed muscles of the face, which also disappear together. The extra saliva that flows, and the inclination to deglutition during the action of the current upon the drum of the ear, prob- ably proceed also from the chorda tympani, or are the result of reflex action; I am inclined to believe the latter. (See p. C44.) The author would here remark, as the result of long and often repeated observations, and as an important item in the general prognosis of all nervous affections, that where the external ear of man, woman, or child, is seen to be. not loelt turned and full formed, i. e., where the helix or external rim of the ear is de- cidedly deficient, particularly if with this the upper portion of the ear is delicate, thin, and dwarfed, or even where the whole ear is unusually small, crumpled, or deformed, wanting either in substance, posture, or well-developed outlines of plumpness and curves of beauty, — in such a person, the nervous system is also peculiar; there is a great liability to some nervous affection. My experience authorizes me to state, that in nearly seven eases out of every ten of all such persons so marked, there is already manifested some nervous derangement or confirmed nervous disease. According to my observations, there is the coincidence at least, that the nervous system of such individuals is either imperfectly developed or unduly developed, (in given parts so as to constitute \mbalanced nerves,) for certainly such persons are peculiarly prone to pain, palsy, chorea, incurable hysteria, and hypochondria, or insanity; such like accidents appearing from no cause, or from the slightest causes. But what is still