172 NATURE AND LIFE. 



the use of the constant current as a healing agent, when 

 death removed him in 1866, in the flower of his age. An- 

 other physician, who benefited by the lessons of Remak, Oni- 

 mus, resumed the interrupted labors of Hiffelsheim, and is 

 now busy in completing the system of the methods of elec- 

 tric medical practice, by subjecting them to an exact knowl- 

 edge of electro-physiological laws. A few instances, from 

 the mass of facts published on the subject, will serve to 

 show how far the efficiency of these methods has actually 

 been carried. 



Experiment proves that, under certain conditions, the 

 electric current contracts the vessels, and thus checks the 

 flow of blood into the organs. Now, a great number of 

 disorders are marked by too rapid a flow of blood, by what 

 are known as congestions. Some forms of delirium and 

 brain-excitement, as also many hallucinations of the differ- 

 ent senses, are thus marked, and these are entirely cured 

 by the application of the electric current to the head. No 

 organ possesses a vascular system so delicate and complex 

 as the brain's, nor is there any so sensitive to the actiou 

 of causes that modify the circulation. For this reason, 

 disorders seated in the brain are peculiarly amenable to 

 electric treatment, and, when carefully applied, it is reme- 

 dial in brain-fevers, mental delirium, headaches, and sleep- 

 lessness. Physicians who first employed the current were 

 quite aware of this benign influence of the galvanic fluid 

 over brain-disorders, and even had the idea of utilizing it 

 in the treatment of insanity. Experiments in that direc- 

 tion have not been continued, but the facts published by 

 Hiffelsheim justify the belief that they would not be bar- 

 ren. These facts testify to the benefits that electric cur- 

 rents (we mean only continuous ones) may some day yield 

 in brain-diseases a point worth the attention of physicians 

 for the insane. Till lately it was thought that electricity 

 was a powerful stimulant only, but what is true of interrupt- 



