THERAPEUTIC VALUE OF LOCALIZED FARADIZATION. 153 



currents, in equivalent doses, exert an identical action upon the 

 sympathetic and the vaso-motor nerves. 



§ III. Upon ivliat class of nerves does localized faradization exert 

 its injiuence in order to increase the activity of the local circu- 

 lation ? 



I. Upon the Vascular Constrictor Nerves? 



A. — Ramifications of the sympathetic nerve accomiMnying the 

 arterioles, excited hy localized faradization. — Localized electrization 

 (either faradization or galvanism, localized by interrupted currents,) 

 is the only means by which we can directly excite the ramifications 

 of the great sympathetic, that are distributed to the muscles of 

 the limbs and of the surface of the trunk. 



It has now been sliown, by microscopic anatomy, that the rami- 

 fications of this nerve accompany the arterioles almost to their 

 ultimate divisions, and that they are found embracing capillaries 

 of the second order. This anatomical fact was discovered, in 

 1856, by M. Ordoiiez,^ and confirmed, in 1865, by my friend M. 

 Gimbert (of Cannes),^ one of the most distinguished pupils of 

 Professor Ch. Eobin, in an excellent memoir, from Avhich I have 

 taken fig. 41. 



In this figure it will be seen that, on a level of the anastomoses 

 of the arterial capillaries, the nerves present ganglia, G, from which 

 proceed new filaments which spread over the capillaries, and 

 terminate in pointed extremities. These are like the isolated 

 fibres of Remak, R. 



We can conceive, then, that in localized muscular electrization 

 (which consists in moving moist rheophores, as nearly as possible 

 approximated to each other, over all points of the surface covering 

 a muscle, so as to produce electric recomposition in the thickness 

 of the muscle, at varying deptlis according to the intensity of the 

 current), we may carry the excitation directly to the vaso-motor 

 nerves which accompany the arteries to their divisions into capil- 

 laries of the second kind. 



* M. Ordonez has mouL.ted beautiful 

 microscopic preparations, shewing the 

 vaso-motor nerves accompanying the 

 arterial vessels to their final ramification. 

 He has nearly followed them to their ter- 

 minations on the capillaries of the second 

 variety. In man, he has established this 

 important anatomical relation in the small 

 arteries of the retina and of the brain; 

 and he informs me that he should have 

 found this same arrangement of other 

 organs, if it had been possible to isolate 

 them with the same facility. The dis- 



covery of M. Ordonez was announced in 

 1865, by M. G. Pouchet {Rapports du 

 grand sympatMque avec le systeme capil- 

 laire: le(;on faite au Muse'um d'histoire 

 uatm'elle — Revue des cours scientifiques, 

 etc., p. 709). To be just, I should add 

 that M. Schweigger, of Berlin, had dis- 

 covered the same anatomical fact at the 

 same time, in the arterioles of the choroid 

 and of the retina in man. 



^ Gimbert, Structure et texture des ur- 

 teres : These de Paris, 1865. 



