26i PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS, [aNNO 1758. 



XCIV. A Further Account of the Effects of Electricity in the Cure of some 

 Diseases.* By Mr. Patrick Br y done. p. 695. 



A young woman of Alton had her right leg drawn back, by a contraction of 

 the muscles that bend the knee, so that she had not been able to put that foot to 

 the ground for near 12 months. She had taken the advice of some surgeons 

 in the country, and had used several remedies to no purpose. At last, hearing 

 the cure of the paralytic woman, whose case Mr. B. sent some time before, she 

 insisted on being brought hither ; and underwent a course of electrical shocks 

 for nearly 2 months, receiving every day at least 50 or 60 in the following man- 

 ner. She sat close by the machine, and grasping the phial in her hand, she 

 presented the wire to the barrel or conductor, and drew the sparks from it for 

 about 4- a minute. The phial being thus charged, she then touched her knee 

 with the wire, and thus received such severe strokes, as would sometimes in- 

 stantly raise a blister on the part. The joint was at last so much relaxed, as 

 that she could walk home with the help of a crutch, though her leg was so weak 

 that she had very little use of it. After she had continued in this state for some 

 weeks, she was advised to use the cold bath : but that soon brought back 

 the contraction ; and he had been since informed that she was worse than ever. 



A soldier's wife of about 30 years of age, was seized with a slight palsy, 

 about Newcastle, on her way to this country : but before she got to this place, 

 she had lost all the feeling in her left side, and so far the power of it, that she 

 was brought to Mr. B. in a cart. After receiving 60O strokes from the electrical 

 machine in the usual way, and in the space of 2 days, she recovered the use of 

 her side, and set out on foot to make out the rest of her journey. However, 

 for fear of a relapse, he gave her a recommendatory letter to Mr. Sommer, 

 surgeon at Haddington, as she was to pass through that town, and as he knew 

 that he was likewise provided with an electrical apparatus. 



A young woman from Home, a village in Berwickshire, complained of a cold- 

 ness and insensibility in her left hand and wrist, of two years standing. When 

 Mr. B. felt that hand, it was as cold as stone, while the other was sweating ; and 

 she told him that it never had been warmer all that time. He made her draw 

 the sparks from an egg (which for some other purpose was suspended by a wire 

 from the conductor) for about half an hour ; and at the end of that time he 

 found the dead hand in a far greater sweat than the other. She then wrapt it 

 up in a piece of flannel, as she used so do, and retired. Next day she told him, 

 that since the operation she had been able to put off and on her cloaths without 

 help, which she had not been able to do for a 12 month before. She was again 

 electrized ; and believing she was then quite well, she went away : but some week* 



* For the first account, see p. l63 of this vol. of these abridgments. — Orig. 



