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

Coolidge, of Chauncy Street, was published that same year in the Boston Medical and Surgical Journal. These instruments should be made of heavy gilded copper, tipped with platinum wire, when used as a loop or saw; but when used as a probe or point, then tips of platinized, untempered steel are prefer- able. The advantages of the galvano-cautery in all this class of operations, according to Dr. Middeldorpff, are, the exact inten- sity of heat and precise line of limitation of the effects of the operation ; the rapidity and cleanliness of the action ; the total absence of hemorrhage ; the ability to reach and remove the deep-seated parts, such as it is impossible to get at with the ligature or knife ; and, finally, the uniformly good character of the fleshy cicatrix. He reports numerous and varied cases so treated, and with very uniformly good results. With it he claims that we can cure neuralgias in the most desperate cases, even where nothing but destroying the nerve can relieve ; wo can use it as a moxa, or for certain rheumatical and superficial piaralysis ; for ncevi, polypi, and other vascular tumors ; for gangrene, ulcers, cancers, and especially for fistulas. Pie suc- ceeded in the bloodless amputation of a deformed finger in a young lady, cutting not only through the soft parts, but also the bone, which rapidly got well. Dr. Marshall and Dr. Amusat, and some others, choose a short bit of platinum wire as the electrode, about one fiftieth of an inch in diameter, and not more than three inches in length, for curing ulcers and removing growths upon the unhealthy cervix uteri; also for removing cancers from those parts. Dr. E. H. Clarke, of Chauncy Street, Boston, professor in the medical department of Harvard University, informed me, a short time since, of his entire success, by this means, in re- moving a deep-seated tumor from the ear passage, that had thwarted all other efforts, or even attempts, because of its hemorrhage nature — a profuse bleeding occurring on the slightest touch. He states that this cautery left only a gray eschar on the side of the bony canal, near the membrana tympani, which did not bleed. The result appears, so far, to be a complete cure. I should have mentioned that in this case 56