FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLES. 43 



evidently due to the reflex action of the cord, called forth by excitation of the 

 skin of the paralysed limbs. 



I wished to discover whether electro-musctilar excitation would produce 

 reflex action with the same facility, when individual muscles were made to 

 contract. At the instant of applying the moist rheophores to the skin, on the 

 surface over the tibialis anticus, the entire limb was thrown into the state 

 of flexion described above. This was entirely due to the touch of the sponges 

 wet with cold water ; the apparatus being not then in action. 



Immediately after the limb had fallen again into its habitual inertia, the' 

 rheophores remaining all the time in contact with the same points of skin, I 

 discharged one intermission of an induced current of moderate strength. To 

 my great surprise the tibialis anticus contracted singly, without producing 

 any reflex action in the other muscles. 



I repeated this experiment seven or eight times in succession (that is, with 

 a single intermission of an induced current each time), and obtained always 

 the isolated contraction of the tibialis anticus, although the power of the 

 instrument was gradually increased to its maximum, and although the patient, 

 each time, experienced a marked sensation. It was also easy to obtain, in 

 the same manner, the contraction of every one of the muscles of the lower 

 limbs. 



I repeated the same experiments, only employing a current of very rapid 

 intermissions in place of that with the intermissions distant. (The effect upon 

 the sensibility was heightened by the rapidity, a subject to which I shall 

 reciu- in the following chapter). The phenomena changed ; and the isolated 

 muscular contraction was followed by energetic contractions due to reflex 

 action. The very acute sensation experienced by the patient had been trans- 

 mitted to the nervous centres, and had produced reflex contraction. 



It follows from tlie above that reflex contractions are produced 

 during electro-muscular excitation only in certain patliological 

 conditions ; and that it is possible even in these conditions to 

 make individual muscles contract singly, by directing upon them 

 an induced current of slow intermissions, so as to produce only a 

 moderate sensation. 



It appears also to be shown that reflex action is more readily 

 provoked by excitation of the skin, than by excitation of the 

 muscular sensibility. 



I used to accumulate here proofs in refutation of the objec- 

 tions urged against localized electrization in 1848 ; and, if I still 

 recur to them, it is because a distinguished writer, M. J. Guerin, to 

 whom science is indebted for valuable contributions on muscular 

 pathology, has attempted, in a critical article published in the 

 ' Gazette Medicale/ by objections founded upon the reflex action 

 of the cord, to set aside localized electrization, and all the 

 researches that flow from it. 



From the whole of the facts, it appears, in the plainest manner, 

 that electrization will cause a muscle to contract singly, without 

 provoking other muscles to reflex contractions, even in the states 

 most favourable to the latter phenomena. 



It has hence been possible for me to create this method, which 

 limits electric excitation to each of the organs, without its being 

 necessary to puncture or incise the skin. I shall now endeavour 



