120 LOCALIZED ELECTRIZATION. 



electrization without pain. How many parents, and even how 

 many practitioners, would shrink from inflicting upon young 

 paralytics the torture of electro-puncture, which is always painful, 

 however feeble may be the current. 



There are yet other inconveniences which attach themselves to 

 electro-puncture, but which are not to be feared in connection 

 with the method of localized electrization that I advise. I refer 

 to the disorganization of the tissues through which the needles 

 pass, and of the inflammations and abscesses excited by them. I 

 need not dwell upon these accidents, Avliich have been recorded by 

 all the observers who have practised electro-puncture. 



Lastly, electro-puncture frequently occasions severe and obstinate 

 neuralgia. The following is an example. One of the pupils of 

 Magendie, A. Berard, consented to undergo an electro-physio- . 

 logical experiment, and allowed the professor to perform electro- 

 puncture upon his face. His complaisance, or rather his curiosity, 

 cost him dear ; for the operation was followed by a facial neuralgia, 

 from which he suffered cruelly for five or six months. He became 

 one of the most brilliant professors of the Eeole de Paris, but, 

 unfortunately, he was too soon lost to science. My information 

 was derived from his brother, the professor of phys-iology. 



The foregoing considerations, however, must not lead us to 

 conclude that electro-puncture should be altogether abandoned. 

 I believe, on the contrary, that in certain cases it may be a potent 

 auxiliary to localized faradization.^ 



Paet the Second. 



ON THE VALUE OF ELECTRIZATION BY REFLEX ACTION, AS 

 APPLIED TO THE TREATMENT OF PARALYSIS. 



§ I. Passage of induced currents from the nerve-extremities to 



the centres. 



Before commencing the study of the therapeutic influence of 

 this method of electrization it is important thoroughly to under- 

 stand its physiological action. 



1 . Physiological action. 



A. — Following the known laws of the propagation of the nervous 

 fluid in the motor nerves, the motor action is exerted only in the 



* Electro-puncture has been called upon I by destroying certain hepatic and ovarian 

 to render great services in sm-gery in the | cysts, and by coagulating the blood in 

 treatment of hydrocele, by promoting the I aneurisms, 

 resolution of certain ganglionic tumours, | 



