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

qucnce of a want of action through the vaso-motory nerves cf the ovaries and uterus. No less important aid is rendered by Faradaic currents for those young females who are threatened with phthisis, by determination of blood to the lungs, or where there is a vicarious hemorrhage or discharge. For these, I can testify that the Faradaic seance comes to the aid of the prac- titioner, in a professional sense, " as a very friend in time of need." I would not be understood to claim for it unfailing success, even where there are no morbid changes. Yet I can say that it is so frequently, and indeed quite uniformly, suc- cessful,— coming to the rescue when the ordinary and extraor- dinary means have long proved not quite sufficient, — that no physician can now afford to be without this excellent thera- peutic at his command. A curious case is mentioned in the New York Journal of Medicine, 1844, by Dr. Le Contd, of the south. He states that a woman, more than seventy years of age, residing on a plantation in tbc State of Georgia, who bad ceased her menses for more than twenty years, on being struck by lightning, her menses were completely reestablished, and continued with the utmost regularity for more than a year after the accident. During the same time her breasts were enlarged much as they were in early life. The best "methods" of treating amenorrhcea by electricity is a question, since different great authorities advocate some- what different plans. M. Becquerel admonishes us, in the first place, not to employ electricity at all, for this or any other disease in the female, " during the catamenial flow" as it is very liable to put a stop to it. I would call particular attention to this remark of Becquerel; so much do I regard its impor- tance, that it has been a very rule with me in all electro- therapeutic applications. In Guy's Hospital, electricity is considered not only admis- sible for treating these cases, but moreover as the only true and reliable emmenagogue we possess. Yet it is by no means to be used here exclusively, any more than in any other case. When visiting that hospital, I observed that they mostly em-