106 LOCALIZED ELECTEIZATIOK 



This method of electrization of the intestine acts upon the spinal 

 cord and upon the raeduHa oblongata with much more energy than 

 the former. It is the excitation of the nervous centres which pro- 

 duces the tetanic contraction of so large a number of muscles ; 

 and it is therefore necessary to have recourse to the procedure 

 very cautiously, and to administer only a gentle dose, lest we 

 should produce asphyxia by artificial and prolonged contraction of 

 the respiratory muscles, or by arrest of the heart's action. I shall 

 return to this procedure, which has also been used in the treat- 

 ment of asphyxia. 



This proceeding, besides being dangerous in certain cases, could 

 only be used in very slight intensity in the human subject ; be- 

 cause the rheophore, applied to the mouth, would excite the 

 extreme sensitiveness of the fifth pair of nerves, and would pro- 

 duce phosphenes. I attempted this operation on the patient 

 mentioned above ; but she could not bear it, even when very 

 slight. I then modified it as follows : one rheophore was placed 

 in the oesophagus, near to the cardiac orifice, the other in the 

 rectum. It was then possible to use a full current. The whole 

 intestine was evidently excited, and the patient had daily colic 

 and abdominal pains, but I did not succeed in overcoming the 

 constipation. 



I see no necessity to employ these proceedings, which are 

 painful, and not free from inconvenience. By placing one rheo- 

 phore in the rectum, and a second (moist) on the abdominal wall, 

 I have often succeeded in obtaining an alvine evacuation. This 

 method produced a stool in an hysterical woman who had suffered 

 for three weeks from a constipation that M. Briquet had been 

 unable to overcome, and whose abdomen was enormously tym- 

 panitic.^ By the same method I relieved internal strangulation 

 of the intestine in a woman who would have undergone an opera- 

 tion if I had not succeeded. I shall recur to this case by-and- 

 by. 



§ II. — FATiADIZATION OF THE OEGANS OF THE SENSES. 



I proceed to set forth briefly the different methods of faradi- 

 zation that are most successful in paralysis of the senses. 



first second, the respiration was sus- 

 pended ; but on its return, it was acceler- 

 ated during the five or six seconds that 

 the experiment lasted, 



influence of the induced cm-rent passed, 

 as in the former exiDcriment, from the 

 mouth to the anus, whatever might be 

 its intensitv. The tetaniform contractions 



The heart continued to beat throiigh- j of the limbs and of the trunk were 

 out the whole exjjeriment, and with I carried to their utmost limits, so as to 

 increased rapidity. 2. In another horse [ constitute opisthotonos, 

 that was about to be killed at Monlfau9on, ^ Briquet, Traite clinique et therapeu- 

 and that I laid ojoen, I did not observe I tique de I'hysterie, p. 661. Paris, 1859. 

 any appreciable contraction under the i 



