44 LOCALIZED ELECTEIZATION. 



to explain the various procedures ; and shall treat in succession : — 

 1, of muscuhxr electrization ; 2, of cutaneous electrization ; and, 3, 

 of the electrization of internal organs, the organs of the senses, 

 and of the genito-urinary apparatus. 



Paet the Second. 

 localized muscular electeization. 



In order to confine the electric action within one of the muscles, 

 or the nerves which supply tliem, is it a matter of indifference 

 which variety of electricity is used? This question can be 

 answered only by studying muscular electrization separately; 

 (1) by static electricity; (2) by contact electricity (muscular 

 galvanization) ; and (3) by induced electricity (muscular faradiza- 

 tion). 



§ I. Localized muscular electrization hy static electricity. 



I have already shown, in Chapter I., that static electricity cannot 

 penetrate to muscular tissue without also exciting the skin, on the 

 surface of which recomiDosition always occurs, and jDroduces an 

 electric spark. It, therefore, cannot be used for the comparative 

 study of the sensibility of the skin and of the muscles, in electro- 

 physiological and pathological researches. 



The muscular contractions that it excites being inevitably 

 abrupt, cannot be used for the study of muscular function. 



Lastly, the shock that is inseparable from its employment, 

 the rupture of capillary vessels that it occasions, the kind of 

 torpor that it produces in organs, the bulk of the apparatus by 

 which it is liberated, all these together, in a word, should restrain 

 more and more the use of static electricity in medicine. 



It would nevertheless be a great error to reject static electricity 

 entirely, and always to prefer the dynamic, on the ground that the 

 latter is not attended by the same inconveniences, and because it 

 possesses special properties, marvellously appropriate, as we shall 

 see, to localized electrization. In my hands static electricity has 

 been of great utility in certain cases in which the other varieties 

 have been insufficient.^ 



In fact, the subcutaneous cellular tissue is sometimes so abundant, 

 or so intiltrated by serosity, that the most intense currents from 

 an induction-apparatus will not reach the muscles. We then may 

 find, in the discharge of a Leyden jar, an electric tension strong 

 enough to overcome the resistance of the tissue behind which the 

 muscles or the nerves are sheltered. 



[See Note, p. 9.-77'. T.\ 



