Electro-physiology and electro-therapeutics : showing the best methods for the medical uses of electricity / By Alfred C. Garratt.
541/740
- Publication/creation
- Boston : Ticknor and Fields, 1861.
- Physical description
- 3 unnumbered pages, 716 pages, 2 leaves of plates : illustrations ; 26 cm
- Contributors
-
Garratt, Alfred C. (Alfred Charles), 1813?-1891
Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library
- Notes
-
3d ed. has title: Medical electricity
Includes index and testimonials
- Type/technique
- Electronic books
- Subjects
-
Electrophysiology
Electrotherapeutics
- Attribution and usage
-
This material has been provided by the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University.
This work has been identified as being free of known restrictions under copyright law, including all related and neighbouring rights and is being made available under the Creative Commons, Public Domain Mark.
You can copy, modify, distribute and perform the work, even for commercial purposes, without asking permission.
The image contains the following text:
remains normal, while the palsy is only that of motion; and
this would lead us to suppose that the spinal cord only is dis-
eased, or else is compressed with effusion within the thcca, which
may gravitate towards the lower portion. Now, where there is
no history of palsy of the diaphragm or intercostal muscles, I
blame the kidneys, and put the patient immediately upon the mu-
tual use of electro-magnetism to the back and loins, and the inter-
nal exhibition of tine, cantharides in thirty-drop doses, repeated
two or three times a day, and alternated with large draughts of
lemonade made of the acetate of polassivm, which, if followed
with an increased flow of urine, will almost surely be followed
by a recovery. If strangury should ensue, (and there is no
existing stricture,) give twenty or thirty drops of laudanum, in
a small starch injection, or camphor by the mouth, and it will
immediately disappear. When the cantharides prescription is
dropped, continue the daily or semi-weekly use of electricity to
the spinal muscles, loins, and abdomen. (See p. 477, B, C, and
Appendix. F.)
Catalepsy.
Catalepsy, it will be remembered, is the almost only com-
plete and general state of "palsy of motion'1'' that can exist,
without instant destruction of life. It rarely continues long,
although it may recur from time to time. The fact is, this
is a complete loss of the power of the will, while there still
remain both consciousness and sensation, but these in a very
diminished degree. The sphincters are entirely unaffected;
the respiration is so slight that it is perceived only with the
greatest difficulty, and sometimes with uncertainty; the pulsa-
tions of the heart are extremely weak and frequent, or slow and
irregular, and the pulse at the wrist may be too minute to be
made out. Powerful currents of electro-magnetism, quickly
alternated, or the sparks, or the Leyden jar shock of static
electricity, is here called for, " to break the spell," and restore
the dominion of the will. By these means, we usually succeed,
and that quickly, except in some protracted cases of this " sus-