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

likewise of the hemorrhoidal vessels, diminishes their natural contractile power; also producing piles and other local weak- nesses." (See Appendix E, F, G.) Dr. W. Cummings, an English physician,* testifies that elec- tric currents, in his hands, speedily brought about the cure of very many cases of habitual constipation which had resisted, in some instances, a great variety of treatments. Thus speak many other good authorities. Now, we reckon, that if habitual con- stipation can be uniformly broken up, and a more natural state brought about that is abiding, so that the bowels are more moist, both on the mucous and serous surfaces, that their calibre and place are more natural, that there is more natural peristaltic ac- tion of the intestines, that the muscles of the walls of the abdomen are toned up to symmetry, and this brought about by only such simple means, with little trouble and less expense, — is surely wortliy of our attention and trial. It certainly has been my own experience during twenty years of general practice, that no such uniform, or, rather, frequent results, characterized with such permanency of relief for this most troublesome condition of many people, have ever attended any other sort of medi- cation or regimen, cither adopted by me or any one else. To be able to reestablish the habitual, natural movements of such flabby bowels as have been irregular and " behind the time" for years, is an achievement any way and every where. True, there arc persons who from carelessness neglect to be punctual at stool, or who by unwise habits of living, or from a morbid appetite for quack medicines, for tobacco, " lager bier," cheese and crack- ers, for smoked meats or dried herrings — of course, will be obstinately constipated, or alternately relaxed. But there are, besides, a multitude of others, who, notwithstanding careful living, punctual stool habits, and most strenuous efforts, perhaps, over and beyond a sedentary business, which, indeed, they must continue to follow, are still suffering from a general weakness of the whole abdomen, or a torpid state of the intestines themselves, but which is most usually ascribed to the liver ! Now, for these, which, by the way, constitute an enormous class, there are no * London Medical Gazette, vol. ix. p. 969.