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

it is necessary to adjust the strength of the current to the given excitability of the nerve and muscle to be treated. He also mentions a difference of muscular sensation in different muscles while contracting. This he termed " muscular consciousness." To Faradaize the skin he recommends three principal pro- cesses. The first is by the " electric hand;" i. e., of the oper- ator. The patient takes one electrode in the hand, and holds it during the seance, while the physician holds the other electrode in his leisure hand. After having dried the skin with flesh powder, the operator passes the back of his hand over the sur- face to be excited. A lively crepitation is the only phenomenon produced, except, perhaps, over the forehead and face, where it becomes painful. It is the advice of the author, whenever this is done, that the operator use the same hand that holds the electrode, so as to prevent the passage of so high an induction current through his own person, which is thus to himself highly injurious and unsafe to be so long continued, or often repeated. The second process is by means of solid or " smooth metallic excitors," which are adjusted to insulating handles. The skin is to be dried as before ; but if the epidermis is very thick or hard, as on the palms of the hands, then the skin may rather be a little moist. When it is necessary to produce a strong effect on a certain point, the excitors are held for a given time lightly in contact with the skin. These solid metallic excitors, he says, are often insufficient for the palms of the hands and soles of the feet, whatever intensity of current may be used. In such cases a bit of wet wash-leather over the face of the brass elec- trode will render it at once effective. The third process of Dr. Duchenne is by means of the metal- lic wires, or " brush electrode " — a bundle of fine wires adjus- table in the hollow end of the common electrode. The skin is quickly and more or less lightly tapped or beaten with the ends of this wire brush, while held perpendicularly to the surface of the skin. But sometimes it is necessary to retain them longer in contact with the skin, as in cases of palsy of sensation. Indeed, Dr. Duchenne recommends this for many cases of anaesthesia, neuralgia, and muscular rheumatism.