82 LOCALIZED ELECTRIZATION. 



B. — ExGitabilitij of the Sensibility of Muscles. 



It is of much less importance to the oj)erator, especially in the 

 application of faradization to therapeutics, to know the degree of 

 excitability of the motricity of the nerves, or of the electric con- 

 tractility of the muscles, than to know what is the degree • of 

 sensibility develoj)ed by the faradization of these nerves or of these 

 muscles. It is, indeed, the exaggerated sensibility of certain 

 regions, or of certain subjects, that sometimes renders muscular 

 faradization impracticable. When I set forth, in the sequel, the 

 results of faradization applied to the treatment of certain kinds of 

 paralysis, it will be seen how the exaltation of the electro-muscular 

 sensibility can render localized faradization dangerous. It is, 

 therefore, ujjon a knowledge of the degree of excitability of the 

 electro-muscular sensibility that the art of localized muscular 

 faradization, as applied to treatment, chiefly rests. Although the 

 individual differences are greater in this respect than for the electro- 

 muscular contractility, I am convinced that it is possible to find an 

 average that will serve as a general rule, just as there exists 

 an average or ordinary dose of any medicine. 



Without entering into the details of my researches on this 

 interesting subject, I purpose to set forth, with regard to the 

 excitability of the sensibility of each of the muscles, certain 

 general facts which may be guides to the operator in direct 

 muscular faradization. 



The electric sensibility is very acute and easily excited in the 

 muscles of the face. This is due to the fifth pair of nerves, from 

 which these muscles receive filaments. In faradization of the 

 facial muscles it is necessary to avoid placing tlie rheophores over 

 points corresponding to the infra-orbital or mental nerves. Ex- 

 citation of these nerves produces very acute pain, which extends 



be studied experimentally by placing acquainted with the researches of MM. 

 under the microscope a muscular fibre, j CI. Bernard and KiJllikcr upon the action 

 separated from all anatomical elements of , of woorara, Avhich destroys immediately 

 nerve, and by then subjecting it to some i the excitability of the nerves and of the 

 stimulus — such, for example, as that of a ' spinal cord, but leaves intact the irritability 

 galvanic or an induced current. But i of the muscular fibre. This particular 

 this is jirecisely what was done by M. action of the Indian poison would suffice, 

 Lebert, in 1842, with the muscular fibre | without the foregoing experiments, to 

 of insects, and afterwards of rabbits, and I establish the truth of the Hallerian doc- 

 of dogs : it is what has been since done trine. Let us add to such facts those 



hundi-eds of times by a great number of 

 observers; and it is done every day by 

 M. Robin, and is shown in his excellent 

 lectures. If ^l. Remak, by chance, 

 refuses to see what has been seen by 

 everybody else, I still ask if he be un- 



which are furnished by the researches 

 of M. Longet, and by daily pathological 

 observation, and we obtain an aggregate 

 of i^roofs sufficient to carry conviction 

 even to the most obstinate minds. 



