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

earth. By holding the hall very near the skin, the sparks are so rapid as to form a mere interrupted one-way current. Shocks from the Leyden jar are much employed in Europe for amenorrhea by directing the discharge through the pelvis of the patient, from the sacrum to the pubis. When it is desirable to discharge the shock through any given part of the body or limbs, and that in a certain direction, we use a double discharger — i. e., one with a glass handle, and with two arms, that may be jointed and adjustable, or not, but the arms are tipped with bright brass knobs. One of these knobs we bring in contact with the point or region where we wish the charge to enter the body or limb. Then, if the outer coating of the charged jar has been already made to communicate by a good and ample con- ductor which is adjusted so as to lead to the point of the body or limb where we wish the charge to leave the body or limb, and we cause the second knob of the discharger now to approach the ball on the top of the Leyden jar which communicates with the inner coating of the jar, the jar is instantly discharged through the part of the patient so positioned. If the clothing and person of the patient are moist or wet from perspiration, it will require care and no little adroitness to succeed. Dr. Cavello early published a small essay on " The Uses of Electricity in the Practice of Medicine." He strongly urged then the use of the machine in cases of paralysis, poor sight from want of nerve power, nervous deafness, chorea, epilepsy, and for restoring those who had fallen into the water, as he had succeeded best in all these with friction electricity. Dr. Cavello's method was, to draio the sparks through dry felt or flannel. The patient sits insulated as usual, and takes the chain to the prime conductor of the machine in his hands ; a piece of perfectly dry flannel is placed over the part which is to be electrified; and, the machine then being put in action, the brass ball or knob of the director that is in connection with the earth is then brought in close contact upon the flannel, while it is regularly and slowly moved along the part affected, and thus made to draw a succes- sion of minute sparks through the cloth, as, for example, along each side of the spine, over the roots of the compound nerve