ACTION OF INTERRUPTED AND CONTINUOUS CURRENTS. 207 



Cafe XVII. — On the day on which tlie discovery of tliis cnrions thera- 

 peutic property of the ascending ciirrent was announced by M. Onimns in the 

 Gazette des Ilopitaux, an oi^portunity for the required counter-proof was 

 afforded me by the case of a young lad, who had been sxiffering from chorea 

 five months. I caused tiie passage of a descending current from 30 elements 

 of my sulphate of lead battery, during five or six minutes, through eacla of the 

 limbs agitated by choreic contractions. The hands were placed alternately 

 in a basin of water in relation with the negative pole ; and the rheophore of 

 the positive pole was placed on a point corresponding to the origin of the 

 brachial plexiis. After the second application, the agitation of the upper 

 limbs had notably diminished. I then passed a descending current through 

 the lower limbs and (following the direction of the spinal cord) through the 

 trunk, which was the seat of some isolated convulsive contractions. From 

 that time the improvement was progressive, and after fourteen applications 

 the young patient was cured. 



It is possible, and even probable, that a greater or less number 

 of cures of chorea, obtained by other observers, have also been by 

 the agency of the descending continuous current. But the case I 

 have recorded, even if it were solitary, proves, contrary to the 

 assertion of M. Oniuius, that the descending continuous current 

 possesses, like the ascending current, the power to cure chorea. 



Is this therapeutic action of the descending equal to that of the 

 ascending current ? I reserve this question for future inquiry. 



(F). — Progressive muscular afroj^hi/. Sclerosis. — Do the continuous 

 currents, by reflex action, exert upon the nervous centres a more 

 favourable influence than localized induction currents, in modifying 

 the conditions of local circulation or nutrition ; for example, in 

 progressive muscular atrophy, or in sclerosis of tlie cord. The 

 affirmative is maintained by Remak, and by the exclusive par- 

 tisans of continuous currents. 



I shall show, in the second Part, that localized faradization is 

 one of the best means of immediately encountering the disorders 

 that are symptomatic of the maladies in question. Thus, for 

 example : 1. in progressive muscular atrophy, muscular faradiza- 

 tion will sometimes arrest the progress of the wasting, and will 

 even develop the muscles that are on the way to destruction ; 

 2, in glosso-labio-laryngeal paralysis it improves for a time the 

 articulation of words and the deglutition; 3. in locomotor ataxy, 

 electro-cutaneous faradization often cures local anesthesia, and 

 consequently much diminishes the functional disorders that it 

 occasions when seated in the extremities ; it sometimes causes the 

 disappearance of fixed cutaneous hypertesthesia ; faradization of 

 the eye may arrest atrophy of the papilla of the optic nerve ; and, 

 lastly, faradization sometimes cures or removes paralysis of the 

 motor-muscles of the bladder, the rectum, and other viscera. 



In the presence of such results, and especially when, after 

 having applied faradization in a general manner, I had seen the 



