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

neuralgic pain may be but an instant, a minute, or an hour, or even longer. It may terminate as suddenly as its attack. It may be liable to recur regularly, or irregularly, for a very great lengtli of time. It may cease for months, or years, com- pletely, and then return, unasked, even more severely than before. The most trivial circumstance may be sufficient to bid it up,— such as vicissitudes of temperature, a moral emotion, or a sudden faulty function. (See Appendix D.) Otalgia, or earache, and Odontalgia, or toothache, fright- fully painful as they are, may be, and very often are, simple neuralgic affections. But the toothache is more frequently re- ferable to some source of irritation in one or more of the teeth, or on the antrum or gums. But often without these more obvious causes, and as often in connection with them, an attack of toothache is brought on by the very same causes, and in the same way, as those which produce other forms of neuralgia ; the local source not being sufficient in itself to develop this morbid manifestation. If it is attended with inflammation, then elec- tricity is not indicated. If there is ulceration, or caries, it is likewise useless, except perhaps for the temporary lull. But when the attack is in the gouty or rheumatic, and the affection is truly in the antrum, nerve, or periosteum, then an electric current can relieve like a charm; and that more uniformly, and for more permanency, than any other means I ever em- ployed. The pain in the ear, that is characterized as neuralgic, appears to be seated in the chorda tympani, and perhaps also involving the acoustic nerve. It is often associated with a face-ache, or neuralgia of the face. The pain in the ear is unattended with inflammation, but is accompanied with noises in the ear, and sometimes with temporary deafness. (SeeD.) Neuralgia of the cervical nerves is perhaps quite as common ; and cases do now and then occur from puncture of the nerve in bleeding from the jugular vein, or from leech bites. But a more moderate and remarkably persistent kind of neuralgic- rheumatic affections of these nerves and their depending mus- cles is frequently observed. These are more chronic ; in some cases and respects, more resembling rheumatism, while in