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

show merely tonic contractions in the reach of the nerve trunk that is traversed by the current. But the phenomenon can change in the same person on different days; i. e., the contrac- tion can appear either in the reach of the so traversed nerves, or the contraction may show itself in the antagonistic nerve and muscles on the other side of the limb. 8. The ivill retains so much influence during the trial, that it can, when exercised, prevent the production of the antagonistic contraction. In such a case, however, the entrance of the current is generally followed by tonic contractions in those muscles and nerves, towards which the motive purpose is then directed; while, at the same time, the antagonists also experience tension. 9. Moreover, this combat between the flexors and exten- sors of a limb appears often without any participation of the will. In that case, it is seen that one of the contractions, which is usually the flexors, will soon dissolve or wilt down again, and that while the current is still running, so that the prevailing contraction goes over into the extensors, or vice versa. 10. Whore a tonic contraction is produced and maintained by a current coursing through a nerve, we do not succeed, by means of the will, to give superiority to the antagonistic contraction. 11. It is by no means probable, that the antagonistic con- traction is merely the consequence of a psychological act; for we notice the phenomenon equally in those persons who are wholly unacquainted with the subject, or object, of the test. Yet it is equally true, that it is difficult for many persons to entirely avoid exercising the will, particularly at the moment when the current enters the nerve. 12. In those cases where the antagonistic contractions oc- cur during the time the current is traversing the nerve media- nus, the thought naturally arises that this is the effect of a cur- rent transplanted through the thickness of the arm, so as to act stronger on the accidentally more excitable extensors than ifa does on the flexors. If this explanation were just and sufficient,