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

the most of them were under thirty years of age. In no cases, he says, were the signs of such a morbid state, either of inflam- mation or of ulceration of the larynx, as would have accounted for the loss of voice. But the affection consisted merely in the loss of power in the nerves and muscles of the larynx. One case, he says, was suffering from a venereal disease, and the merely paralytic character of the complaint might possibly have been overlooked. There was a syphilitic eruption over the skin, and a large node over the right eyebrow, so that by a superficial examination one might have been led to the diagnosis of aphonia, resulting from syphilitic ulceration of the larynx, but the signs of such ulceration were not present. A few applica- tions of electricity proved beneficial. In some other of these cases, there was a thickening of the mucous membrane of the larynx; others had taken a cold just before; others did not know of any cause, but on awaking in the morning, found the power of voice gone. The voice was totally lost in all these cases, but some of the patients were able to whisper by move- ments of the lips and tongue. All complained of a sore feeling in the throat; four of them felt pain in or about the chest, and in the epigastrium; three were irregular as to the time of entrance of the catamenia, but amenorrhcea was not present in any one of them. In two cases, aphonia was only one of the symptoms of a deep hysterical disturbance of the whole nervous system, for these patients suffered from globus, headache, cramps, &c. Dr. Althaus says, in order to give electro-thera- peutics a fair trial in all these cases, he employed no other sort of medication. He used mild induction currents, mostly directed to the crico-thyroid muscles, and also to the recurrent nerves. This proved beneficial, for out of the fifteen cases, eleven were cured in a very short time. Faradaization proved unsuccessful in four cases, which had been of long standing. But in the eleven uncomplicated, which had not over four months' standing in any of them, he obtained the following results: One case was cured by one application of electro- magnetism, the voice returning in about three or four hours after the seance. Two cases were cured by three, and the other