ACTION OF INTERRUPTED AND CONTINUOUS CURRENTS- 211 



second Part, will show that at its maximum, or in a suiScient 

 degree of force, I have seen it cure angina pectoris, and very- 

 painful sciatic neuralgia which had resisted all medication ; while 

 by lesser degrees I have successfully treated more or less grave 

 neuroses and nervous maladies, or certain dynamic conditions 

 (as in diphtheritic poisoning) by exciting the precordial 

 cutaneous zone that is in reflex relation with the origin of the 

 pneumogastric. 



General Conclusions. 



It is not my intention to attempt a complete report on the 

 therapeutic application of continuous currents. I believe them 

 to be destined to render great services in practice. In summing 

 up in this chapter my personal experience of the applications 

 that I have made of them, I am endeavouring to appreciate them 

 at their proper value ; and at the same time to guard the public 

 against the exaggerations of their exclusive partisans. On the 

 other hand, in showing the admirable results of the employment 

 of localized faradization, and in proving by facts that, in a large 

 number of cases, it should not be supplanted by continuous 

 currents, I have wished to retain in medical practice an excellent 

 therapeutic agent, however unjustly it may have been depreciated 

 by persons who have not known how to use it, or who have not 

 used it comparatively ; an agent, finally, the application and 

 management of which are easy and may become general. If I 

 attain my object, I shall have the satisfaction of having avoided 

 the great errors of electro-therapeutics, of having preserved fara- 

 dization from the disregard in which an endeavour has been 

 made to place it ; and of having largely contributed to its diffu- 

 sion in medical practice. 



I sum up, in the following conclusions, the principal facts that 

 liave been stated or demonstrated in this chapter. 



I. The exclusive partisans of the therapeutic application of 

 continuous currents, who, with the object of obtaining the pre- 

 valence of their method, have charged localized faradization not 

 only with being powerless in the treatment of paralysis, either 

 with or without atrophy, but also with being hurtful by exerting 

 a paralyzing action upon the vaso-motor nerves, these galvano- 

 therapeutists, I say, have ignored or misunderstood the admirable 

 results of the employment of localized faradization, in the treat- 

 ment of these affections, upon a great scale, for more than twenty 

 years (see § I. p. 147) ; in consequence, if they have not obtained 

 the same results, they have but to blame themselves for not 

 having followed the precepts that I have established after long 



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