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

Paralysis. The term " Paralysis," or " Palsy," (which mean the same,) is used to designate some degree of loss of the power of motion. There is, likewise, a paralysis of sensation; but this is termed " Anaesthesia," and will be treated of under that head. A loss of both sensation and motion frequently occurs together; but the paralysis of sentient nerves is more likely to be recovered from early, than the paralysis of motor nerves. They may not only oc- cur together, but cither may appear without the other ; but then even, the simple paralysis of sensation (anaesthesia) is far more uniformly and promptly recovered from spontaneously, or by the help of treatment, than is the idiopathic or traumatic palsy of mo- tor nerve and muscle fibre, which constitutes what we usually un- derstand by the term paralysis. But we must ever bear in mind that palsy, like pain, is but a symptom, and not the essen- tial disease itself. Says Dr. Todd* " Non-medical people, and sometimes even medical men, are apt to speak of this af- fair as if the palsy constituted the whole essence of the malady; but this is not the case. Palsy is an effect due to a cause, which cause itself is not always the essential disease." This is also true of most other diseases. " What then," he asks, " are the causes which may give rise to paralysis ? These must be, either an affection of the nerve or nerves, whose power is destroyed in some part of their course; or from a morbid state of the cen- tre, in which the given nerve or nerves are implanted, or with which they may be more or less directly connected. The ner- vous trunks themselves may be impaired, perhaps, in their nu- trition, the centre being healthy ; or they may have suffered some mechanical injury from violence or pressure. Thus they may become either imperfect conductors of the nervous message and force, or they may be rendered altogether incapable of propa- gating that force, or some portion of the centre of volition is the seat of a morbid process whereby the influence of the 'will over certain parts is suspended, and thus the nerves of these * Clinical Lectures on Paralysis, Diseases of the Brain, &c, London, 1855.