ELECTRICITY AND LIFE. 537 



gained remarkable dexterity in dealing with, the electric agent, and 

 detecting with the readiest insight the proper points for applying the 

 battery-poles in each malady. Those who, with ns, witnessed in 1864 

 his practice at the hospital, will remember it clearly. The methods 

 of Duchenne were almost the only ones accepted in practice in France, 

 till Remak came to prove to Paris physicians the powers of electriza- 

 tion by constant currents, in cases where Faraday's currents had been 

 without eifect. The teaching of the Berlin practitioner bore its fruits. 

 A rising young physician, Hiffelsheim, was beginning to spread 

 throughout Paris the use of the constant current as a healing agent, 

 when death removed him in 18GC, in the flower of his age. Another 

 physician, who benefited by the lessons of Remak, Onimus, resumed 

 the interrupted labors of Hiffelsheim, and is now busy in completing 

 the system of the methods of electric medical practice, by subjecting 

 them to an exact knowledge of electro-physiological laws. A few in- 

 stances, from the mass of facts published on the subject, will serve to 

 show how far the efficiency of these methods has actually been car- 

 ried. 



Experiment proves that, under certain conditions, the electric cur- 

 rent contracts the vessels, and thus checks the flow of blood into the 

 organs. Now, a great number of disorders are marked by too rapid 

 a flow of blood, by what are known as congestions. Some forms of 

 delirium and brain-excitement, as also many hallucinations of the dif- 

 ferent senses, are thus marked, and these are entirely cured by the ap- 

 plication of the electric current to the head. No organ possesses a 

 vascular system so delicate and complex as the brain's, nor is there 

 any so sensitive to the action of causes that modify the circulation. 

 For this reason, disorders seated in the brain are peculiarly amenable 

 to electric treatment, and, when carefully applied, it is remedial in 

 brain-fevers, mental delirium, headaches, and sleeplessness. Physicians 

 who first employed the current were quite aware of this benign influ- 

 ence of the galvanic fluid over brain-disorders, and even had the idea 

 of utilizing it in the treatment of insanity. Experiments in that di- 

 rection have not been continued, but the facts published by Hiffel- 

 sheim justify the belief that they would not be barren. These facts 

 testify to the benefits that electric currents (we mean only continuous 

 ones) may some day yield in brain-diseases a point worth the atten- 

 tion of physicians for the insane. Till lately it was thought that elec- 

 tricity was a powerful stimulant only, but what is true of interrupted 

 currents is not true as to currents from the battery. Far from being 

 always a stimulant, the latter may become in certain cases, as Hiffel- 

 sheim maintained, a sedative and calming agent. This control over 

 circulation, joined with the electrolytic power of the galvanic current, 

 allows its employment in the treatment of various kinds of conges- 

 tions. A congested state of the lymphatic ganglia, the parotid glands, 

 etc., may be relieved by this means, the current acting in such cases 



