MUSCULAR ELECTRIZATION. 47 



citation of the nervous centres. They are analogous to an effect 

 that I propose to discuss in Chapter III., under electrization by- 

 reflex action. This excitation of the nervous centres may, it is 

 true, find its indication in electro-therapeutics ; but it should at 

 least be avoided when the indication does not exist, or when its 

 occurrence might be dangerous. It is this method of electrization 

 that occasions, in certain conditions, serious accidents, as I shall 

 show in the sequel; and yet mountebanks are permitted to practise 

 it in public places ! 



It is a great mistake to suppose it possible to localize electric 

 excitation in a muscle, by directing upon its surface the discharges 

 of a powerful electric machine. To correct this mistake, it is 

 sufficient to analyse the phenomena of interior recomposition 

 which produce a kind of shock in return, and which must neces- 

 sarily overrun the whole nervous system, when a portion of the 

 natural electricity by which the body is pervaded escapes from 

 a point on the cutaneous surface, to neutralize electricity of a con- 

 trary name proceeding from a machine in movement. 



Another advantage in the employment of the Leyden jar is that 

 it then becomes unnecessary to use an electric machine of large size 

 and high price; which would with difficulty find a place in the 

 consulting-room of the practitioner. A small machine with a 

 single conductor, and with a plate fifteen or sixteen inches in 

 diameter, is sufficient to charge a powerful I^eyden jar ; the action 

 of which may always be diminished at pleasure by Lane's electro- 

 meter, used as described above. 



§ II. Muscular electrization hy contact electricity, or localized 

 muscular galvanization. 



I have said already, in the first chapter, which treats of the 

 physiological and therapeutical effects of the different kinds of 

 electricity, that galvanic electricity, administered with an inter- 

 mittent current, is distinguished from static, principally in that 

 it can be made to penetrate the skin without exciting it, and 

 that its action can be more easily localized in subcutaneous 

 organs. We shall see that galvanic electricity is useful to 

 localize electric action in the muscles or in the nerves that supply 

 them. 



Unfortunately, many inconveniences attend the application of 

 this kind of electricity to muscular electrization. 



The calorific and electrolytic action of galvanism, and its property 

 of acutely exciting the retina when applied to the face, are enough, 

 I think, to proscribe its employment in the study of muscular 



