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

that one poor molar may be dragged out without a flinch." Dr. Arnott thinks it is even so now. Any mode of producing local anaesthesia,—I mean complete local anaesthesia, — with- out injury, lies open, at this moment, as the grandest prac- tical discovery to be made in medicine; and he who makes it can be grudged his well-earned fame by none but the selfish and the foolish. (See Appendix D, Note 1.) Galvano-Cautery for the Teeth. Who, of our own dental surgeons, was the first to use the elegant galvano-cautery for destroying the sensitive nerve-pulp of decayed teeth, either to relieve pain, or as preparatory to " filling," I am not informed; but it appears that Dr. Thomas H. Harding, of England, was the first to put it in successful practice in that country. I admire what he says of his expe- rience in this matter. He remarks that Dr. Marshall's paper in the London Lancet, in May, 1851, first suggested to his mind tliis excellent method as the more certain, rapid, and safe man- ner of effectually obliterating the nerve of a decayed tooth. Many methods have been from time to time employed to direct the " galvanic heat" upon the tooth-nerve,but they have mostly been either inefficient or badly managed. Speaking of other methods where the tooth is liable to be injured, as, by the "actual cautery," the substance of the tooth is carbonized, Dr. Harding says, now, all this liability is completely removed by using the electric cautery, which can never be surpassed for convenience and ready mode of application, besides possessing a steady, uniform, concentrated, and constant degree of heat, which can be continued at pleasure until the proper effects are obtained, and then it can be as magi- cally stopped by breaking the contact of the conductor. It has the advantage, also, that it can be introduced unseen into the patient's mouth, and actually placed within the cavity of the tooth, before it is made to become incandescent (white hot) — an advantage that, for this particular purpose, cannot be over- estimated by dental surgeons, who are so frequently called