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

iell's element was passed thrcmgli the joint obliquely for five min- utes, during which the positive pole was moved from minute to minute, from place to place about the joint, but always on that same side of it. The tension was immediately diminished. I then produced some twitchings of the extensors of the forearm, and then those of the arm muscles, by the current changer. All this had good effects — less red, but joint still hot; omit for three days — heat then less, and much improved, but pain still in the bend of the elbow. This was entirely removed in the course of a few more sittings. In four weeks this treatment most radically cured it, and restored the arm nearly as well as the other. (See p. 475, A, B, C, and Appendix E, F, G.) " Spasmo-Paralysis " in Childhood. Dr. W. J. Little, the " founder " of the Royal Orthopedic Hos- pital near London, gives an expose of his views of early and " unnecessary division of tendons" in children under ten years of age, who are suffering from spasmo-paralysis.* We cannot do better here, than to quote such candid and practical advice. He there says, " I shall endeavor to demonstrate, that the larger portion of those contractions of muscles, which take place during childhood, may be treated without tenotomy; at least as success- fully without division of tendons, as with the performance of that operation." In order not to appear to disparage Stromeyer's great discovery of sub-cutaneous division of tendons, and to prevent misconstruc- tion, I may at once state, that many cases of non-congenital deformities in various parts of the body and limbs, in their ad- vanced stages, are relievable only with the aid of such tenotomy. Talipes cquinus, wry-neck, contracted elbow and knee, when severe, and of several years' duration, may be here adduced. But it is now a matter of weekly experience to me, how singu- larly the necessity for resort to the tenotomy becomes restricted, when mechanical treatment by means of properly adapted and adjusted apparatus and manipulations, aided by physiological * Braithewaite's Retrospect, for 1858, part 37, page 132.