144 LOCALIZED ELECTETZATIOK 



unwilling to attribute it to the slight electro-cutaneous excitation 

 that 1 had practised. In the cases of asphyxia already recorded, 

 in which precordial faradization had given me a result not less 

 important, I had found it necessary to increase the current to the 

 highest degree of intensity. But when I beheld cutaneous fara- 

 dization of the precordial region, although applied only of feeble 

 intensity, and with the electric hand, overcome such grave dis- 

 orders on successive occasions, I felt it necessary to place the fact 

 on record. 



If, instead, of acting with this prudence, and feeling my way, so 

 to speak, to the degree of excitability of the patient, I had in the 

 first instance passed an intense current, the result would have 

 been wholly different. This, indeed, was shown in the case of 

 Madame X., by an accident, on one occasion of the recurrence 

 of the disorder of innervation of the heart. I had all in readiness 

 to relieve this disorder in the way that had always succeeded; 

 but, the apparatus having been moved, its graduating cylinder had 

 been entirely drawn out without my observing it. Tiie acute 

 excitation that the instrument then produced was followed by 

 slight syncope, and momentary stoppage of the heart. However, 

 the cutaneous faradization of the precordial region, that I practised 

 immediately afterwards, soon subdued this nervous disorder. 



Physiological experiments perfectly explain such accidents. 

 They show that a powerful excitation of the pneumogastric pro- 

 duces stoppage of the heart's action, and of the respiration. 



The general conclusion to be drawn from the foregoing is, that, 

 in certain morbid conditions, the general excitability is greatly 

 increased; a proposition that I have already laid down. Con- 

 sequently, if called upon to encounter, by the aid of cutaneous 

 faradization, grave nervous disorder, it is necessary to proceed 

 gradually, and to proportion the intensity of the current to the 

 degree of tolerance or of excitability of the patient, under penalty 

 of producing more -or less dangerous mischances. 



Under the influence of ideas that are sufficiently old, and that 

 have been promulgated anew by physiologists whose only practical 

 experience upon the point is based upon their experiments on rats 

 and rabbits, and who on this basis have seized upon the Academy 

 of Sciences and the Surgical Society, I was disposed, as I have 

 said, to pass a current, in the case of Madame X., from the mouth 

 to the anus. But, when I observed her extreme excitability, I 

 accepted it as a warning not to expose her to such a method of 

 reflex excitation of the cord and the medulla oblongata, — a method 

 infinitely more powerful than the very feeble cutaneous electriza- 

 tion that I put in practice. Even supposing that the former 



