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

pathetic nerve is electrized actively, i. e., severely, we find the following results: An opening of the eyelids; a dryness of the cornea and conjunctiva; a dilatation of the pupil; a con- traction of the blood vessels of the whole eye, and consequent diminution in the quantity of blood there ; a decrease of tem- perature and of sensibility; the nervo-electric current proper of the muscles of the eye is less; the excitability of the motor and sentient nerves of the iris, as also of the muscles, together with the contractility of the arteries, disappears sooner, after death, than on the other side ; the cadaverous rigidity and putre- faction commence sooner than on the sound side, because of the greater clectrolytical or chemical changes produced by the power- ful and prolonged action of the current on the nerve and tissues. M. Bernard says, if the external auricular nerve, which takes its rise from the cervical plexus, and transmits the reflex action from the external ear to the spinal cord, and thence to the great sym- pathetic, be cut across, the increased temperature of the external ear that is thus produced cannot be lowered to its natural standard again by the direct means of induction currents to the lobes of the ear; while if the application be made rather to the cut cerebral end of the sympathetic branch, then the tempera- ture immediately decreases to its normal standard. On the other hand, if no section of the cervical sympathetic nerve has been made, and the external ear is sharply Faradaized, then the tem- perature of the whole auricle is diminished. It follows, therefore, that if we electrize the external ear, as by direct Faradaization applied to the upper or lower part of it, there is produced a different phenomenon, according as the sec- tion of the superior cervical sympathetic has been made or has not been made. Where the section of this nerve has been made, the ear becomes hot, &c. Then, if electro-magnetism be applied so as not to pass through the thin diameter of the auricle or external ear, but rather so as to traverse its longest extent, as from top to bottom, the temperature becomes thereby in- creased; but if the electricity is direeted rather to the cephalic cut end of the sympathetic nerve on that side, the temperature is diminished. But this has been further illustrated by test. Dr.