174 NATURE AND LIFE. 
ent motor nerves most commonly excited are the facial 
nerves, the nervous branches of the forearm or the fingers, 
which are affected in “ writer’s cramp,” * 
of the spinal nerve, whose irritation occasions tic-doulou- 
reux, chronic wryneck, etc. Now, electricity cures, or at 
least noticeably benefits, these different morbid states, and 
exerts the like influence over neuralgic and neuritic affec- 
tions, wherever these disorders are not the symptoms of 
other deeper maladies. Currents restore the normal ac- 
tivity of nutrition in the diseased nerves, and the corre- 
sponding muscles ; they act on rheumatism, too, in the most 
beneficial way, modifying the local circulation, quieting the 
pain, and stimulating reflex phenomena, which are followed 
by muscular contractions. Erb, Remak, Hiffelsheim, and 
Onimus, have proved beyond question this salutary action 
on swellings of the joints, either in acute or chronic cases. 
The discoveries respecting the influence of electricity 
over the spinal marrow have been used with advantage in 
the treatment of such disorders as arise from unduly-ex- 
cited activity in this organ, such as chorea, St. Vitus’s dance, 
hysteria, and other nervous convulsions, more or less simi- 
lar. We cite two instances of this sort published by Dr. : 
Onimus, giving an idea of the mode of applying the cur- 
rent in such cases. A child, twelve years old, was seized 
with a frightful attack. Every five or six minutes it lost 
consciousness, rolled on the ground ; its eyes turned upward, 
then grew so rigid that none of its limbs could be hent. 
The attack over, it regained its senses, but the least im- 
pression, at all vivid, sufficed to bring on a new attack. 
Ascending currents were first applied to the spinal mar- 
row. The child was at once seized with a violent crisis. 
1 Writer’s cramp consists of a kind of spasm of the finger-muscles, 
preventing their regular contraction in holding or guiding a pen or play- 
ing the piano, while the muscles of the hand and forearm preserve all 
their normal strength. 
and the branches” 
