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

power, and length of time continued, <fec. Either work, or Gal- vanism, and Faradaism, may be injurious, when thus made em- pirical and abusive. Feeble muscles and limbs can be rubbed by strong ha?uls, until they are powerless. Joints that are stiffened and weak may be readily over-exercised, so as to be more helpless than before. I have seen cases of " wasting palsy " brought to my rooms that had been " so faithfully " and perseveringly shampooed with some prescribed liniments, or with coarse, wet towels, and that, too, by the advice of the medical attendant, performed perhaps by the devoted mother from the highest motives of love and duty, — so overtaxed by these means,—that the process of atrophy and degeneration had gone on with most shocking and astonishing rapidity, and to a degree altogether incredible unless observed. For these reasons, the author is all the more inclined to inter- pret the 0i>er-/owg,-conthiued action of a medium faradaic or galvanic current, either on a motor, sentient, or mixed nerve, in the first instance, as pre-occcupying or diverting the nor- mal nerve action, and which is sooner or later followed also by a fatigue, and then an exhaustion that is speedy in pro- portion to the strength of the electric current, and the endow- ment of the nerve ; much the same as is produced by very violent, unremitting, and protracted labor; only the electric current's effects are quicker and more complete than labor's effects in producing this class of results, and can act where labor cannot be brought to bear. Effects of Electric Currents on the Sympathetic Nerves. The earliest experimental researches on the ganglionic or sympathetic nerves, says Dr. Althaus, were undertaken in 1727, by Dr. Pourfour, who found that from the section of the cervi- cal filament of the sympathetic nerve, the following phenomena are observed ; a contraction of the pupil of the eye; a flatten- ing of the cornea ; a redness and sometimes injection of the con- junctiva ; the secretion of the palpebral mucus is increased; the eyelids are partially closed, and the third eyelid, as in birds, 21*