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

6. The sphincter ani is not paralyzed, though it may be weak. 7. The bladder preserves some degree of contractility. 8. There may be no pain in the back, and no pain on press- ing the spinous processes or on applying a hot, wet sponge to them. 9. The degree of weakness in the legs is in ratio to the urinary disease ; catheterism, and any removal of obstruction to free discharge of urine, is sometimes rapidly followed by amendment. 10. In the early stages of this form of partial paraplegia, there is no history of convulsions, or of cramps, spasms, formi- cation, nor violent neuralgic pain. Take a case still more advanced. The patient can yet walk a mile or two, perhaps, but the gait is tottering: the urine loaded with mucus, or muco-pus, and the phosphates; it soon becomes ammoniacal after it bas been passed, and there is a fre- quent desire to pass it. Electro-magnetic or Galvanic currents, I feel quite confident, are of very great utility in such cases, but must be used persevering!//. You may send a pretty strong current, frequently reversed, through the weak muscles, on the dorsum of the ilium, on the loins, thighs, and legs, for a few minutes every day; or the patient may wear one of the little portable batteries, (Humboldt battery,) with the poles fixed alternately on either limb, so as to keep up a constant mild current for a few hours each day or night. There are recorded many cases by M. Lallemand, in his work on involuntary seminal emissions, in which the patients were feeble, or vacillating in their limbs, and afterwards became sub- jects of incomplete paralysis of the lower extremities. I do not question, for a moment, that paraplegia is a very common result offrequent seminal emissions, whether voluntary or involuntary. Indeed, it is undeniable that the frequent agitation of the ner- vous system, particularly when so caused, does lead to chronic irritation, inflammation, and softening (or atrophy) of the spinal cord, with paraplegia as a necessary consequence. ^47*