190 LOCALIZED ELECTRIZATION. 



sions up to an extreme rapidity. At the time of my first 

 researches, I had many rheotomes constructed which fulfilled these 

 conditions, and which were moved either by the hand or by 

 clockwork. These rheotomes are still in use for certain electro- 

 physiological or therapeutical applications. I use also habitually 

 the wheel rheotome, called the distributor of the entrance or 

 of the issue of the current, which is represented in fig. 40, and 

 described on page 123. 



B. — Bistindion to he established hetween these different methods of 

 galvanization. — Having collected together, in my room and under 

 my hand, the various instruments which are required for all 

 methods or kinds of electrization, nothing has been more easy 

 than this kind of comparative research. It has been chiefly 

 carried out upon the patients of my clinique, patients suffering 

 from all kinds of paralysis, atrophic, traumatic, saturnine, rheu- 

 matic, spinal, infantile ; from various spasms and contractions, 

 from chorea, and locomotor ataxy. 



It is necessary to say, first, that a good number of these disor- 

 ders will be improved or cured by electric excitations, of what- 

 ever kind they may be ; by galvanic currents more or less 

 intermittent, or continuous and permanent, or even by static 

 elc ctricity, as much as by induced currents. This fact will serve 

 to explain the admiration that every specialist has constantly 

 professed for the kind or mode of electrization that he has exclu- 

 sively used, without knowing, or without having emj)loyed, com- 

 paratively, the others. 



I have, however, seen forms of paralysis, neuralgia, neurosis, 

 &c., requiring a favourable prognosis on account of the ease with 

 which they are habitually cured by induced currents, resist the 

 action of intermittent or continuous voltaic currents. 



I will not confine myself to generalities ; but will say, in a few 

 words, what are the various modes of galvanization that I have 

 used in my electro-therapeutic researches, and what deductions I 

 have been able to form concerning them. 



The distinctions that I have established between the different 

 modes seem to me to afford the basis of a good method of gal- 

 vanization. I divide muscular galvanization into — 1. localized 

 galvanization, which is performed by moving moist rlieophores 

 connected with the battery over all the points of the surface 

 corresponding to the bulk of muscles, but at a distance from their 

 nerves or from nerve trunks, and of which the varieties and the 

 mode of physiological action have been already explained, both 

 for interrupted and for continuous currents ; and, 2. galvanization 

 by reflex action. 



