ACTION OF INTEEEUPTED AND CONTINUOUS CURRENTS. 197 



irritability of muscle, when it is la: own, as I have demonstrated, 

 that in paralysis the voluntary movements may be re-established 

 by localized faradization, although the paralysis of electro-musculai 

 contractility remain. It is this strange phenomenon that is 

 expressed in the title of a memoir that I addressed to the Institut 

 in 1846, — "The integrity of the electro-muscular contractility 

 is not essential to the performance of voluntary movements." 



D. — Paralytic contractions. — It is especially in the treatment, by 

 the continuous current, of the secondary contractions observed in 

 cases of hemiplegia consecutive to cerebral haemorrhage, that 

 Remak has made application of his theoretical ideas about the 

 electro-physiological phenomenon which he has called galvano- 

 tonic reflex contraction ; theoretical ideas which rest upon the 

 experiments already described and criticised. 



(a). He has thought to discover a more complete demonstration 

 in the influence of continuous constant currents, during their 

 passage through certain nerve-trunks, upon paralytic contractions. 

 The following is a summary of an example that he cites as a 

 typical case, showing the reality of this special action of the 

 continuous current. 



Case XTTT. A woman, aged 35 years, was attacked by hemiplegic contrac- 

 tion of the rigM side consecutive to a cerebral lieemorrbage of eighteen 

 months' standing (she was aphasic). Remak passed the continuous current 

 of from 20 to 30 of Daniell's elements through the right crural nerve, and he 

 saw, after 30 or 40 seconds, the segments of the iipper limb and the lingers 

 of the hand of that side which had been strongly flexed, extend themselves 

 completely, while analogous effects were produced in the lower limb, by 

 treating the median nerve in the same manner. 



I have many times repeated this experiment of Eemak's, undei 

 analogous conditions, up'.m the patients of my clinique, and I have 

 very rarely witnessed the production of these so-called galvano- 

 tonic reflex contractions, which, according to him, should be the 

 essential sign of the therapeutic action of the continuous current. 

 The following are the experiments that I made [jublicly at the 

 time. 



Case XIV. — During several weeks I subjected to these experiments, or 

 rather to treatment by the continuous current after the method extolled by 

 Remak, six patients of my clinique, who were suffering from secondary para- 

 lytic contractions, consecutive to cerebral haemorrhage; four of them had 

 hemiplegia of the right side, and were aphasic ; the other two had hemiplegia 

 of the left side, and their intelligence was unaffected. The paralytic contrac- 

 tions were of from one to two years' duration. In all, I caused the i^assage, in 

 the median and crural nerves of the paralyzed side, of a descending (centri- 

 fugal) current, in a permanent manner in each nerve during one or two 

 minutes; each smnce for each of them lasting from five to ten minutes, with 

 a current of from fifty to a hundred elements of my siilphate of lead battery, 

 and of a tension accommodated to the degree of individual tolerance (for it 

 must not be forgotten that this kind of galvanizatiol^ is painful). In one of 



