ACTION OF INTEERUPTED AND CONTINUOUS CUREENTS. 181 



ties of the current which are inevitably produced in even the most 

 constant of the batteries themselves. 



It follows therefore from my own experiments (made for the most 

 part publicly), and from the foregoing considerations, that the 

 production by continuous currents of the so-called galvano-tonic 

 contractions has not at present been demonstrated. 



Remak attributed these pretended galvano-tonic contractions, 

 which occurred during the passage of a continuous current through 

 a nerve-trunlv, in the muscles controlled by its antagonist, to a 

 reflex action of the cord; and he consequently thought that they 

 were produced by reflex excitation of a sensitive nerve. 



I crave pardon from my readers for stating the theories and 

 hypotheses hazarded by Remak, in his wish to explain facts thus 

 complex and irregular. It is, however, upon such facts, and such 

 theories, that this physiologist has fancied that he has built up a 

 new method of therapeutic galvanization ! I shall have occasion to 

 return to the subject. 



No one, indeed, will contest the novelty of his theories ; but in 

 what consists the novelty of his manner of exciting the human 

 muscles by a continuous current ? We have already seen in this 

 part (pages 176 and 177) that in my investigations long ago (and 

 many others had practised them before me) I had caused a con- 

 tinuous current, as constant as possible, derived from twenty or 

 twenty-five of Bunsen's elements, or from a Daniell's battery of 

 from thirty to fifty elements, to pass through the continuity of 

 human nerve. It is true that most commonly I placed my rheo- 

 phores over the course of the nerve-trunk somewhat nearer together 

 than was done by Remak. But does this slight difference in the 

 procedure constitute by itself a new galvano-therapeutic method ? 

 And then, who can believe that so slight a difference between the 

 procedure of Remak and my own could occasion such differences 

 in our results ? 



§ III. My latest researches on the therapeutic actio7i of galvaniza- 

 tion hy interrujpted or hy continuous currents, in the treatment 

 of jparahjtic or nervous affections, and as compared tvith localized 

 faradization. 



I. HiSTOEICAL AND CRITICAL. 



A. — 3Iy first researches. — Considering the negative results of the 

 electro-physiological experiments that I had made upon the action 

 of direct or inverse continuous currents traversing the nerves of 

 man (see § II.), it may be imagined that I no longer attached any 

 weight to the electro-therapeutic deductions of Matteuci. In my 



