ACTION OF INTERRUPTED AND CONTINUOUS CURRENTS. 185 



arising from the electrolytic action of the permanent continuous 

 current, and these inconveniences may in part be avoided. 



C. — The selection among these different inethods. — Under what 

 circumstances should we have recourse to voltaic currents of more 

 or less rapid intermission (labile currents), or to permanent (pro- 

 longed) continuous currents? And in what dose, and for how long 

 a time, should the permanent continuous currents be applied ? 

 Aj)art from surgical, electrolytic, or galvano-caustic applications, 

 there is no rule on the subject that rests upon close or sufScient 

 clinical research. It is certainly not thus with localized faradiza- 

 tion, for which the various and clearly formulated methods have 

 their precise indications, drawn from prolonged experiment or 

 clinical observation. 



For myself, who commenced my electro-therapeutic researches 

 by the application of voltaic currents, and have never ceased to 

 use them (a fact which certain persons do not know, or, rather, 

 have forgotten), — for myself, I say, who have always continued 

 to study the relative therapeutic worth of voltaic and induced 

 currents, I have not confounded, in my researches, more or less 

 intermittent voltaic currents, with voltaic currents circulating 

 through the organs in a permanent manner. 1 even went so far 

 when I applied the permanent (stabile) constant current, as to 

 avoid the excitation produced by the completion of the circuit, by 

 making the current pass through a column of water in a moderator 

 tube, and by gradually diminishing the thickness of the column 

 after the circuit was established. Neither have I neglected to 

 experiment, in the way so much lauded by Eemak, comparatively 

 with permanent constant currents. I will, shortly, give a summary 

 of the opinion I think may be formed of their therapeutic value, 

 from the researches that I have made since 1861 ; very insufficient 

 ones, I know, but of this I have made no concealment. 



II. Apparatus and instruments required for this kind of 



.RESEARCH. METHODS OP GALVANIZATION THAT I HAVE 

 FOLLOWED IN MY COMPARATIVE INVESTIGATIONS. 



Before stating what deductions I have drawn from my experi- 

 ments, with regard to the therapeutic worth of galvanization as 

 compared with faradization, it is necessary to state what instru- 

 ments I have used in the application of galvanic currents. 



I have stated in the first chapter, that, in my latest researches, I 

 had chiefly used a Daniell's battery, and a battery of bisulphate of 

 mercury, and that, since 1861, I had used a battery of sulphate 

 of lead, of from thirty to a hundred elements, the small surface 

 battery of M. Alph. Mathieu, and, quite recently, the portable 



