78 LOCALIZED ELECTRIZATION. 



excited by the process of direct faradization, it is impossible to act 

 singly upon each of the anatomical elements, since all these ele- 

 ments inevitably receive, at the same time, the direct excitation 

 of the current ? Such a remark would be little less than a gra- 

 tuitous insult to the intelligence of my readers. No one can be 

 ignorant that, during life, these elements cannot be separated as 

 in an anatomical preparation. 



I have long advocated direct muscular faradization in the 

 treatment of affections in which the muscular properties are in- 

 jured ; and principally in atrophy and atrophic paralysis. 



This doctrine rests upon a long experience, and proceeds from 

 numerous facts related in the many memoirs that were reproduced 

 in the previous edition. The doctrine, without doubt, has not 

 been laid down explicitly enough in my writings ; for certain 

 authors have attacked direct muscular faradization with violence. 

 According to M. Remak, and according to other authors (his fol- 

 lowers) I should only act upon the muscle, in this mode of elec- 

 trization, through the medium of its proper nerve, and when 

 placing my rheophores over its point of immersion. In order 

 thus to travestie the method of direct muscular faradization, my 

 opponents could not have read that I have advised, as stated above, 

 the movement of the moist rheophores over all the points corresponding 

 to the cutaneous surface of the muscles. That by this process the 

 muscular nerve will sometimes be influenced, if the current is 

 strong enough, is incontestable; but, in order for muscular fara- 

 dization to be complete, it is nevertheless necessary to carry the 

 excitation over all the muscular surface. It is true that M, Kemak 

 denies the existence of muscular irritability and sensibility.^ Con- 

 sequently, according to him, what could be the utility of direct 

 excitation of muscle ? 



Even admitting — what I dispute — that these properties could be 

 as much excited through the intermediation of the nerves as when 

 the rheophores are placed over the muscular tissue, would it be a 

 matter of indifference, therapeutically, that the electric excitation 

 should be applied directly to the tissue of the muscles, the capil- 

 laries, and the vaso-motor nerves wkich accompany them ? M. 

 Eemak and his pupils are too. good physiologists to maintain 

 such a position. A little reflection should, therefore, make them 



^ For IM. Eemak to make me say that trisiriug ffelxhmter Musheln. Berlin, 

 in direct electrization, the muscular fibre 1 1856). My reply to this strange criti- 

 contracts soLly by re.ison of its irrita- i cism was jiublislied in a well-known and 

 bility (Halkrian irritability) is to attri- highly esteemed journal, Jalu-biicher fiir 

 bute to me an enormity tliat I have I gesammte Medizin, May 1856, and in Ln 

 not committ d. (JJeber methodische elec- Revue medicale, 1856. 



