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

these very partial freaks of disease to visceral irritation, and in that case it must be through the sympathetic nerves, just as we might expect. He evidently had distinct and well-defined ideas about these cases forty years ago. He correctly grouped them together, and yet, apart from all other kinds of local palsies, such as arise from injury of the spinal cord and nerve trunks, or from lead. In 1849, M. Duchenne, of Boulogne, presented a memoir to the Institute of France, entitled " Atropine muscvr laire avec transformation graisseuse." In 1853, M. Cruveilhier read Ins researches on this subject before the Academie de Mede- cine, and so graphic was the delineation of this mysterious malady, that progressive wasting palsy has been termed " Pro- gressive Paralysis of Cruveilhier," or " Cruveilhier's Atrophy." This is a truly formidable disease. What produces it imme- diately or remotely we cannot tell. It may occur without the least assignable cause in persons who have met with no accident, and are otherwise in perfect health. Wasting palsy may affect children and adults, male and female ; but it is suspected to arise, sometimes, from protracted fatigue of certain muscles; also from bruising, and from cold. It is almost always of slow invasion, and is usually discovered first from the sensible loss of power; for by this, the attention of the patient or friends is drawn to the state of the muscles, when, perhaps, they are dis- covered to be already wasted, or soft and degenerated. There is also noticed, at times, a violent quivering in these muscles, which does not cause motion of the limb, nor any kind of pain. This quivering- does not attend all cases of this malady, but when it does occur, it indicates that the disease is still advan- cing, and if it ceases, the disease is arrested, or the muscles are already totally destroyed. Some of these patients complain of vibrating cramps that prevent their sleep, but such are quite distinct from the tremblings. The muscle, or clan of muscles, is progressively destroyed, while the nerve branches, even down to the affected muscles, are at first apparently sound, and the general nervous system appears to be quite healthy. The attacked muscles appear, on dissection, of a pale yellow color, are wasted as to number of fibres, and their bulk is often