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

nearly tlie entire cavity ; sometimes they connect the inner surface of the membrana tympani to the internal wall of the tympanum and the sheath of the tensor tympani muscle. The place where these bands and adhesions are more frequently found by post mortem examinations is between the crura of the stapes and the adjoining walls of the tympanic cavity ; at least, this was the case in twenty-four instances out of one hundred and twenty dissections. These bands of adhesion sometimes are found to contain extravasatcd blood, or scrofulous matter. In the third stage of inflammation of the ear membrane, it becomes ulcerated ; the membrana tympani is then destroyed, and the tensor tympani muscle is atrophied, (wasted.) The ossicula auditus become diseased, and are ultimately discharged from the ear; the disease often extending itself, now to the tympanic walls, and then affecting also the brain and other im- portant organs. Dr. Kramer, of Berlin, says, in regard to the " appearance " of the membrana tympani in health and in disease, that, " by the most careful ocular inspection of well nigh four thousand cases of ear diseases, which was repeated on some of these many times, I have arrived at the most undoubting conviction, that the ' healthy' membrana tympani is entirely colorless, shining, and diaphanous, having a well-marked concavity externally; and that, under the influence of the inflation of the tympanum, while the mouth and nostrils are closed, it is raised only into two round, longish swellings near the malleus, whence we may con- clude that it is in a state of expansion. " The ' diseased' membrane, on the other hand, I have always found either inflamed, and then red as a lobster, or reddened, thickened, degenerated, swollen, or indurated; or, the inflam- mation having ceased, some of the numerous consequent changes of organization have been detectable; all these cases likewise excluding the idea of relaxation from or after inflammation, as its sequel." Dr. Kramer, it appears, arrives at the following conclusions: — 1. "The magneto-electric or electro-magnetic currents act decidedly as an excitant on the organ of hearing.