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

nerves, — from those cases which are still depending upon a true cerebral origin and cause ; for in this latter, the suscepti- bility of the palsied muscles to contract, when under the influ- ence of Faradaic currents, remains more or less intact; while in the former, i. e., where the paralysis is purely from a local or traumatic lesion, this phenomenon is always utterly wanting. And further, we find that the gravity of the given case of paralysis is in direct ratio to the loss of the electro-muscular susceptibility and contractibility of the muscles affected. But if this muscular " sensibility" is preserved, or even partially so, and that even where the electro-muscular contraction has be- come extinct, we learn that this great gravity is in some degree diminished, particularly if the neighboring muscles also show a normal response by electro-muscular contraction. This region integrity, where the case is not of too long standing, so that the sick muscle has not already passed by degeneration into a fatty state, is always a very favorable sign, at least as possible, or probable, that these muscles, under a judicious use of Galvanic or Faradaic currents, will rapidly recover. Moreover, we can now classify these cases even closer than this; but let us first notice the opinions of distinguished men upon this subject. We observe that systematic writers arrange all those affec- tions of the human organism that are designated as palsies, or paralyses, (which is the same thing,) under three general divis- ions, viz., 1. Paralysis from brain origin. 2. Paralysis from spine origin. 3. Paralysis from traumatic lesion. And under this last head are arranged all those cases arising from primary local effects upon the peripheric nerves, as well as those whose primary cause was perhaps from a brain lesion, (which is now restored,) and the remaining paralysis is only local. The opinion of Dr. Duchenne upon this most grave question must certainly be considered. It has been declared by him, as also by Marshall Hall, Becquerel, and other physicians, that electro-muscular contractibility remains, or is exalted, in all those cases where the origin and cause are in the brain. That is, if Faradaic currents are localized in the affected muscles, or where one pole is placed on the muscle and the other is over