ACTION OF INTERRUPTED AND CONTINUOUS CURRENTS. 193 



veniences of galvanism (electrolytic action, action upon the skin, 

 and too acute excitation of the retina), and offers the advantage of 

 acting sharpl-y, according to the indications that are to be fulfilled, 

 upon the muscular sensibility with the extra current, and upon 

 the cutaneous sensibility with the induced current, by virtue of 

 the properties special to each. If, besides these reasons, it is 

 considered that induction instruments are of small bulk, easy of 

 transport and of application, and inexpensive, it will be understood 

 why I have advised the use of muscular faradization in preference 

 to intermittent localized muscular galvanization, which requires 

 large batteries, only applicable, in general, in the rooms of 

 specialists. 



IV. — Eesults of my investigations into the therapeutic 



APPLICATION OF REFLEX GALVANIZATION BY CONTINUOUS CUR- 

 RENTS, MINGLED WITH FEEBLE INTERMITTENCES (labile Currents), 

 AS COMPARED WITH LOCALIZED FARADIZATION. 



I will pass in review, as rapidly as possible, some of the prin- 

 cipal maladies, or muscular affections, in which I have studied 

 experimentally the therapeutic action of continuous currents by 

 Eemak's method, as compared with localized faradization ; re- 

 serving more complete details for the second part of the volume. 



A. — Atrophie paralysis consecutive to traumatic lesions of nerves. 

 — More than twenty years of electro-therapeutic research, con- 

 ducted publicly upon a large scale, in the Paris hospitals and in 

 my own clinique, tested and confirmed by a great number of 

 observers in Europe and in America, have established, in an 

 incontestable manner, the therapeutic value of localized electriza- 

 tion by faradization, or by galvanization Avith interrupted currents, 

 and especially by the former, in the treatment of atrophic paralysis. 

 The facts and considerations already brought forward cannot have 

 left any doubt, upon this point, on the minds of my readers. 



However, in presence of the claims of the promoters of Eemak's 

 method of galvanization, and especially after the assertions of 

 young philosophers who, I regret to have to say, interpreting in a 

 strange manner the results of their experiments on rats and rabbits, 

 have come before the Academie des Sciences, and other learned 

 bodies, to announce that induction currents paralyse innervation 

 (a statement which would lead us to suppose that the therapeutic 

 results had not happened), I wished to discover, in my clinique, 

 whether experiment would explain such an aberration, if not fully, 

 at least to some extent. For this purpose I have applied con- 

 tinuous currents, mixed with intermissions, exactly after the 

 method of Eemak, to the treatment of atrophic paralysis, con- 



o 



