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

muscles gain nothing from electrical treatments for their volun- tary contractility, if this poiver is lost in whole, or in part even, as this loss of voluntary action, while there is prompt electro- muscular response, is not from the incapacity of the muscle to contract, as is thus proved, but it is from a want of functional continuity of communication with the organs of .volition at the base of the brain. But in the former cases, where the paralysis seems to be mainly, if not entirely, localized in the muscles, and this diminished action is from inaction, then the employment of Faradaization of those muscles becomes highly useful, and often completely successful. (See pp. 331, 512-516, and F, Note 2.) Even such results will not be happy, however obtained, except so long as the hemorrhagic focus, or other lesion, is nothing more than a healthy cicatrix ; for if, after the resorption of the effusion, whatever that may be, if there remains a persistent clot, or debris of a clot, or a cyst of any size, or if the brain has suffered any considerable loss of substance, then even, also shall we realize a failure of the best electrical treatment. On the whole, then, we infer from his reasoning, which is based, as we should bear in mind, on the earlier but most exten- sive experience in systematic electro-medical practice, that it is very difficult to determine in any exact manner the condition or degree of the lesion in the brain ; but that some six months after the malady first showed itself, the paralysis being no longer caused, or, in other words, sustained, by the central lesion, and that under the above circumstances, and where there is no sort of rigidity which characterizes all such cases, it can then be safely treated by Faradaic currents, and that many of such will be greatly benefited, or completely restored. In proof of this he gives a variety of striking examples. Furthermore, M. Duchenne lays down the rule, also observed by others, that the contractions of certain muscles and limbs following cerebral injuries are due to a persistent irritation in the brain, and that the proportion of this contraction is in direct ratio to the degree of the brain irritation. Hence, where there is persistent rigidity of a muscle, or group of muscles, electricity will do no possible good, but rather do harm. But