68 LOCALIZED ELECTRIZATION. 



the moxa and transcurrent cauterisation.*' They are even prefer- 

 able to those means, since they may be made to produce an action 

 more or less gradual, according to particular indications, while the 

 pain ceases immediately after the formation of the eschar. Those 

 who have prescribed the therapeutic application of the batteries 

 of small surface have too often forgotten the dangers or the incon- 

 veniences of their calorific or electrolytic action. 



These instruments, having the power to produce energetic 

 muscular contraction, appear, at first sight, likely to be very 

 useful in the treatment of paralysis. Unfortunately, they rapidly 

 become enfeebled ; almost immediately, indeed, after being set in 

 action. To illustrate this, it will be sufficient to relate a single 

 experiment with a Pulvermacher's chain. I directed an inter- 

 mittent current upon the biceps of the arm, the apparatus being 

 at its maximum. The contraction of the muscle was such, at the 

 first intermittence, that the fore-arm was strongly flexed upon 

 the arm, and the patient experienced an acute sensation. But the 

 second contraction was a little less strong than the first, and each 

 successive contraction became weaker, until, after about twenty 

 intermissions, the muscle scarcely contracted at all. I repeated 

 this experiment frequently on different muscles, and found that the 

 weakening was more rapid the more frequent the intermissions. 

 The continuous current, again, exhausts the apparatus more quickly 

 than the intermittent. These little instruments are powerful, there- 

 fore, — on the condition that they are not set in action ! The weaken- 

 ing, however, is only temporary ; and, if the current be out of use 

 for a quarter of an hour, the apparatus will recover its original force. 



The temporary weakening of these small voltaic piles, even 

 under the influence of intermittent currents, joined to their 

 continual and progressive exhaustion, renders it very difficult to 

 measure or calculate their action. On account of the sources of 

 weakening to ^^hich their physiological action is exposed, these 

 batteries of small surface are, it may be conceived, inapplicable to 

 the localization of electric excitation in individual muscles or 

 nerves, and especially for the electro-physiological and patho- 

 loo-ical researches which require extreme precision. How, in- 

 deed, can we measure a force that is subject to such variations ? 

 How can we graduate the dose to the excitability of the organs, 

 so different in different states of health or of disease ? ^ 



6 If it be cicsiiecl to produce deep and | pile of M. Grenet [or the battery specially 

 rapid cauterization, as by a moxa, it is [ constructed for tlie piu-pose by Stohrer, 

 necessary to use a battery of large sur- of Dresden. — H. T.~\ 



face, like that contrived by M. Reguault, ! ' M. Keuiak, criticising my statements 

 and already described at page 16 ; or, : on the action of the galvanic current, has 

 still better, the powerful and ingenious written (Galvaiiotherapie, Paris, 18G0, 



