GENEEAL EFFECTS. Ill 



neutralisation being effected, the two opposite electricities, by 

 which the body is still penetrated, reunite to regain their normal 

 state, and do not again separate until a new current comes to 

 disturb them. Such is the series of physical phenomena pro- 

 duced, more or less frequently, in man ; according to the rapidity 

 and the frequency of the induced current that is directed upon his 

 organs. 



The modifications that are thus wrought in the natural state of 

 the electricity of the human body do not produce, iu general, any 

 appreciable dynamic effect. But it should be known that, in cer- 

 tain nervous conditions difficult to analyse or to explain, man does 

 not bear with impunity these changes in his electric state. There 

 are then developed certain general jDhenomena, which, if they do 

 not contra - indicate the use of faradization, at least show the 

 necessity for caution in its employment. It is well known that 

 some persons are very sensitive to electric changes in the atmos- 

 phere. I know a lady who, during a thunderstorm, is stricken for 

 some hours with general paralysis. I have also seen persons who, 

 under the influence of faradization, suffer from singular nervous 

 troubles. These general effects are not produced by the excitation 

 of organs ; but appear to depend upon the modification of the 

 electric state of the body. Thus faradization may produce 

 dazzling, a feeling of faintness, or general numbness, although the 

 operation, very slightly performed, has occasioned no local sensa- 

 tion. I have seen, in La Charitd, a young paralysed girl so 

 sensitive to the influence exerted upon her general state by in- 

 duced currents, that faradization was contra-indicated in her case, 

 although it produced no local sensation. I append an account of 

 the case, which was one of much interest : — 



r«ve in.— Salle St. Vincent, No. 26 (service de M. Andral)— Eugenie Thon- 

 venir, aged sixteen, born in Paris, of good constitution and lymphatic 

 temperament. Continual contraction of the flexors of the fingers and thumb 

 of the left hand ; so that the fingers cannot be extended hj any effort. The 

 patient can herself flex and extend the left fore-arm. She walks without 

 dragging the left leg; but is easily fatigued, and feels a weakness of that 

 side. On the left, a needle thrust deeply into the tissues, or a hard blow on 

 an osseous surface, produces no sensation ; the hands and feet have lost tactile 

 sensibility. In standing or walking, she feels the ground only with the 

 plantar surface of the right foot. On the left side there is insensibihty of 

 the skin of the face, of the conjunctiva, and weakening of sight, loss of smell, 

 taste, and of the general sensibility of the nasal and buccal mucous mem- 

 brane. Although thus insensitive to impressions from without, the patient 

 suffers from frequent and deep-seated pains in the left arm and leg. She 

 cannot bear pressure on a fixed and limited spot below her breast, which is 

 the seat of continued pain. She vomits five or six times daily, either food or 

 drink. She has no attacks of hysteria, no strangulation, no palpitations, no 

 abnormal heart murmurs ; but a murmur in the carotid. 



At the first st'ance for faradization, excitation of the skin, muscles, bones, or 

 periosteum, and even of the nervous trunks, occasioned no kind of sensation 



