194 LOCALIZED ELECTRIZATION. 



secutive to traumatic lesions of nerves, in the cases that have come 

 before me. 



The results of these experimental researches have been far from 

 fulfilling the pretensions of Remak and of his school. For im- 

 provement, in cases of any severity, I have had long to wait ; and 

 I have generally been unable to effect a complete cure except by 

 localized electrization, — that is, by exciting peripherally all parts 

 of the paralysed muscles (fibres, nerves, and vessels), by moving 

 over all points of the surface the rheophores of my induction 

 instrument. 



It might be supposed, nevertheless, that the combination of the 

 two methods of electrization might sometimes produce a more 

 rapid cure, when the atrophic paralysis is symptomatic of a spinal 

 lesion ; because, by Remak's method, the reflex action stimulates 

 the spinal centre, at the same time that the motor and sensitive 

 nervous ramifications, and those that govern the local circulations, 

 are peripherally excited by localized electrization. 



For several months I have tried the two methods in combination, 

 particularly in the spinal paralysis of infancy ; but I am not yet 

 able to pronounce upon their actual value. I am not accustomed 

 to form conclusions in so short a time, in my experimental re- 

 searches upon therapeutical questions. 



B. — Lead-palsy. — It is especially with regard to lead-palsy that 

 the exclusive partizans of the continuous currents, have been most 

 unfortunate in their inconsiderate attacks upon the value of 

 localized faradization. I have certainly treated by this method 

 several hundred cases of all degrees, and more or less general in 

 extent; and I have known few which have not been quickly 

 cured. 



With regard to the electric treatment of this form of jjaralysis, 

 Remak has had the unskilfulness to write : " The kindness of 

 many of my friends has afforded me opportunities of treating a 

 certain number of patients, and has fully convinced me of the 

 insufficiency of the induced current in many morbid states, espe- 

 cially in rheumatic and saturnine paralysis, which, according to 

 M. Duchenne, ought to be cured by it." ^ 



To this attack I have already responded in the following manner .' 

 — " The facts which have been stated, and which, since their pub- 

 lication, now of old date (the fi^rst edition of ' Localized Electriza- 

 tion,' in 1855), have been supported by others too numerous to 

 be reckoned, and by a vast electro-therapeutic experimentation 

 repeated by numerous observers ; all these facts, incontestable and 



' Remak, lor. c.it. 



