76 



LOCALIZED ELECTRIZATION. 



Fig. 30 represents the conical rheopliores, covered with moist 

 leather, held in the left hand, and placed upon the triangular 

 muscle of the lips. 



It is always necessary to place the rheophores over the fleshy 

 bodies of the muscles, and never over their tendons ; because 

 (as it is hardly requisite to state), the stimulation of the latter 

 does not produce muscular contraction. 



[Mr. J. Netten Eadcliffe gives the accompanying illustration (fig. 31) of the 

 method of holding the rheophores (' The Practitioner,' vol. i., p. 25). — H. T.'] 



Fig. 30.— Method of holding the conical rheophores. 



Fig. 31.— Mode of holding rheophores according 

 to Mr. lladcliffe. 



In order to faraclize a muscle completehj, it is necessary that 

 the moist rheophores should cover the whole of its surface ; and, 

 when they are not large enough to do this, they should he applied in 

 succession to all points of the surface. The thicher the substance of 

 the muscle, the more intense should he the current ; hecause a weak 

 current ivill only produce excitation of the superficial laijers. 



I proceed to develope this capital proposition, and to demon- 

 strate its truth. 



^a).— When the moist rheophores are placed on the upper part of 

 a long muscle, we see, under the influence of an induced current 

 of medium force, this part of the muscle swell, and we feel it 

 harden ; while, if the same rheophores are placed over the lower 

 part of the muscle, the lower part swells and hardens in its turn, 

 liheophores applied to one point of a broad muscle cause contrac- 

 tion only of the fibres with which they are in relation ; the neigh- 



