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 action 
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- 
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