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

galvanism is repeated for a quarter of an hour, daily, the inten- sity being increased from time to time. Steady perseverance for a season is requisite. With this method, according to my ex- perience, the case must he obdurate indeed that will resist a cure. " One remarkable fact connected with the treatment by electro- magnetism is, that it detects the very portion of the bowels where the greatest amount of irritation exists — a knowledge which manual pressure often fails to elicit; for it is a singular truth, that where the instrument is in action, extreme tenderness is complained of in more than one well-defined spot or tract, of which usually the patients were not previously aware, and that, perhaps, quite distant from the regions to which the attention of the doctor is directed, as the seat of pain. It is extremely inter- esting to observe how this tenderness, after a time, from the con- tinued use of electro-magnetism or galvanism, diminishes, until a mere point is fixed upon, as its seat, and how this also is re- moved ; after which the disease may be said to be actually ex- tinguished. Yet I have seen reason to persevere, at more distant intervals, in the application of this agent, for the sake of con- firming the recovery by strengthening the nervous system, and conducing to the self-regulation of the bowels." The foregoing testimony of Dr. Cummings on this point is extremely valuable ; indeed, I know of none more so. But I am inclined to think that the harassing pains attending these cases are, in part at least, seated in the parietcs of the abdo- men— a muscular hyperesthesia that, though apart of the affec- tion, should be correctly designated. As the abdominal viscera are always a little slower to respond to the electric influence than are voluntary muscles, so, when treating here, and the pos- itive electrode is upon some part of the spine, while the negative is upon the bowels, the latter must be compressed and retained for some appreciable time in a given spot in order to make any real and abiding impression upon the underlying bowel. This is all-important, even while the electrode that is on the back is being moved up or down, as also when both electrodes are ap- plied and embedded in the flanks of the abdomen itself.