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

mancntly until after several sittings. The needles were allowed to remain inserted for a little time, during which the patient was directed to make such motions as had usually before brought on the paroxysms of pain, and if any was still found to be produced, the current was repeated. This he termed " e/ec- tro-puncture." But in other parts of the body he often used the sponge electrodes. By carrying out the rules and conditions already obtained by Nobili and Marianini, he restricted the use of the galvanic current to a bearable strength, and, in given cases, to certain given current directions as regards the affected nerves. In all cases of pure neuralgia he always employed the positive pole of the battery towards or nearest to the nerve centre and over the nerve trunk, while the negative pole is placed over, or into, some portion of the ramifications of that nerve; so that the electric stream is direct, token treating neuralgias. But he held, also, that in case the current was employed in the opposite direc- tion, and, if not too severely employed, the therapeutic effect would still more or less take place, it being in that case a dis- turbing method, which is, indeed, a very law in therapeutics ; but then there would be a waste of remedial power, and a production of needless pain. M. Bccquerel advises to the employment of this powerful agent in the most gentle and agreeable manner possible, and for that reason he thinks it best to dispense with the needles, and employ moist sponges, using sometimes the secondary or Faradaic, and at others the primary or Galvanic currents. Dr. James, a recent English author, gives it as his experience, that one, and the largest, class of neuralgic patients is best treated by the veritable, primary, and continuous galvanic cur- rent, of only moderate intensity ; but he does not define the class, or say particularly how he directed the current. It is my own experience that the neuralgias met with, in this country, are mostly of two quite distinct kinds, — or, at least so they may be termed, — as relates to the successful adapta- tion of the different electric currents. If the operator cannot by tact or discrimination distinguish these at first, he will find that 36*