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

cal patients, although it occurs in others ; this being the form which has received the least attention. It is, however, of very common occurrence, and the ignorance that has prevailed con- cerning it has given rise to numerous and disastrous errors in diagnosis. It may excite surprise to learn that this hyperesthesia not only constitutes the means of recognizing the nature of hysteria, but is a positive criterion for the decision in doubtful cases. This hyperesthesia is so easily recognized by the following signs that it is surprising it has not been sooner appreciated : — 1. The pain is always located in places occupied by the fleshy portions of muscles; or, in certain conditions, at one end of their tendinous insertion. 2. As the superficial muscles are those usually affected, it is felt immediately beneath the skin. 3. Slight pressure, or scratching with the end of the finger over the affected muscle, induces or aggravates the pain. 4. The pain thus induced is very severe, causing often cries or contortions on the part of the patient, or even an hysterical paroxysm. 5. Movement, and especially distention, of the fibres of these muscles, produce or exasperate the pain, while rest abates or relieves it. 6. Feeble electro-magnetic currents, which scarcely produce a sensation elsewhere, — i. e., when travelling through the length of a muscle that is in a normal condition, — will induce an amount of pain that is difficult to bear while traversing the hyperesthetic muscle, and becomes quite intolerable when the current is made a little stronger. 7. Under the influence of proper Faradaization, non-inflam- matory muscular pains, including also such as the rheumatoid, and those of lead-colic, and especially those arising from a pure hyperesthesia of muscles, (in men or women,) are now known to be rapidly dispersed. But we find that this hypersesthesia — which, indeed, maybe termed " hysterical myoalgia " — is not found to affect all muscles alike ; the superficial muscles, and particularly those of the trunk, being the most liable to it. In