130 LOCALIZED ELECTRIZATION. 



sliofht contraction of the tonoiie, of the sphincter and levator ani, 

 and by phosphenes ; while the pulse and the respiration were a 

 little inci'eased in frequency. The procedure was perfectly well 

 borne, as the current was not sufficiently intense to produce reflex 

 contractions in the limbs. But, having in this way obtained no 

 result, as against the maladies that were to be overcome, I gra- 

 dually increased the intensity until reflex contractions were 

 obtained; taking care, in order to avoid all danger, to diminish 

 the speed of the intermissions to one or two in the second. The 

 patients then exiDerienced painful shocks, chiefly in the legs, — 

 pains which were followed, after the passage of the current, by 

 a feeling of general lameness. In one patient, who suffered from 

 complete anaesthesia and analgesia, I was able to produce, in con- 

 sequence, during fifteen or twenty seconds, and with a weak 

 current of very rapid intermission, general reflex tetanic contrac- 

 tions. The heart did not cease to beat, nor the respirations to be 

 made ; but the patient remained for some time dazzled by the 

 phosphenes that were produced during the passage of the current. 



From these experiments I concluded — 1, that the method of 

 faradization by reflex spinal action might be applied in practice 

 to the human subject without any danger, and that it is perfectly 

 borne so long as the current is not sufficiently intense to produce 

 contraction of the limbs ; 2, that it does not, indeed, produce 

 arrest of the respiration, even when it produces tetaniform reflex 

 contractions, unless these are too strong; but that it is difficult 

 to say at what point the limits of safety would be exceeded ; and 

 that, 3, in certain dynamic or morbid conditions, the slightest 

 tetaniform contractions might expose the patient to danger. 

 For such reasons, founded upon experiments dating from 1854, I 

 have been very circumspect in the use of general faradization, 

 and have discountenanced it when practised in a degree of in- 

 tensity to produce reflex contractions, or with very rapid inter- 

 missions. 



C. — More recent experiments on the a])plicatio7i of this method to 

 the treatment of as-phyxia, as comjjared tuith induced, and with 

 constant continuous currents. General faradization by this method 

 may succeed in the cure of asphyxia, without there being occasion 

 to increase the intensity of the current so as to produce reflex 

 contraction. 



This important fact was brought to ligh by M. Liegeois, in a 

 very able report read by him before the Imperial Surgical Society 

 on the 17th March, 1869, in the name of a commission composed 

 of M. Paul Broca and himself, upon a paper addressed to the 

 Society by MM. Legros and Onimus, on the 10th of December, 



