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

termed " incurable," then, even, mechanical supports, by means of elastic substances, steel springs, or rubber, may aid the weak member to perform its office. It has so often happened, that while such a patient has been under treatment, by tenotomy and the subsequent mechanical treatment, say during a period of ten or twelve weeks, or months, that the paralysis of the non-divided muscles has partially or wholly disappeared, justifies the opinion that the same period occupied by proper treatment, without the preliminary tenotomy, would have equally witnessed cessation of paralysis, and conse- quent cessation of the contraction and deformity, by the restora- tion of antagonistic and associated muscle-action of the respec- tive parts. That this result would have ensued, is not merely an opinion, but a matter of observation, in similar cases treated without tenotomy. Until the age of ten years, varying according to constitution and growth, the majority of paralytic and spastic muscle con- tractions may be subdued by mechanical and other physiologi- cal means. As after preliminary tenotomy, the same mechani- cal means and physiological treatment are here for an equally protracted period desirable ; i. c., until recovery from the paral- ysis or spasm takes place. Unnecessary tenotomy has not really the merit of even saving time; for although, at first, a rapid alteration of the form or mobility of the affected muscles and articulation is produced, which operates very favorably on the minds of the bystanders and friends, it after all is often an ulti- mate delusive benefit; often acting injuriously also by detract- ing attention from the other important modes of treatment. The division of tendons in paralytic contractions and spasmo- paralytic contractions is indispensable, when the contracted muscles have undergone structural shortening — a state in which, besides constant contraction of collective muscle fibres, whether resulting from loss of antagonism, or from spasm, (tonus,) the individual muscular fibres, after the lapse of several years, probably not less than six or seven, — more rapidly, however, during childhood than after puberty,—have undergone an inter- stitial change, the nature of which is imperfectly known, appar-