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

numerous small bits of copper and zinc, that are moistened with wine vinegar and then placed upon the patient, who wears them for some six to twelve hours together. Thus he aimed to make up by time with a weak current, what the latter sought to do by more active currents in a shorter time. But there appears to be no comparison in the results. The apparatus that Dr. Remak uses (a compound Daniell's battery) gives a very constant quantity current, with little heat, that is entirely under his control to wave, interrupt, or reverse at his will, and that with a power capable of changing the polarity of the deep- est nerves, of producing the contraction of the muscle fibres, and the dilatation of the vessels; while the Pulvermacher's chain, being poorly made, and worse applied, is an inconstant current, working when and where it may happen. This proba- bly was the origin of the once celebrated " Christie's Galvanic Rings and Belts " that so flooded our country. Dr. Hilden- hains advised the placing of one pole of this pile on the central organ, i. e., on the spine, while the other end of the chain, or pile, was planted on the diseased part. This was necessarily a failure. But, no doubt, if the current could have been uniform, and directed only for certain cases, this would have rendered essential service in many diseases. M. Robert Remak made his pre-trials with constant or primary currents of galvanism, with reference to medical practice, first on his own person. It appears that he took some forty of Daniell's elements, and from such compound-battery he ap- plied the current to his arm; but, finding this too painful, he then used only thirty elements. Thus, by trials repeated first on himself and then on others, he arrives at the following rules, (as he considers them,) which are condensed from his work: — 1. The conduction of a strong and somewhat painful current is required to be directed through a nerve trunk, in order to produce in a muscle or limb a general tonic together-drawing, or, in other words, a fair muscular contraction. 2. If a current, by coursing through a nerve, succeeds in producing a tonic contraction, then this contraction could have been produced whether the current embraced a greater or 26