Electricity is an excito-motor. Two forms of galvanic currents are usually employed in medicine - the galvanic or continuous, and the induced or Faradic. These, although closely allied, differ in their therapeutic uses. Both are stimulants, and the effect they produce is not followed by depression. The galvanic current, unlike the induced, affects the nerve and special senses.

Electricity is used in paralysis and paralytic affections, infantile and other wasting palsies; in chorea, locomotor ataxy, myelitis, b anaesthesia, chronic hysteria with massage.c

The treatment of paralysis by means of electricity must be conducted rationally and with discrimination; by means of electricity we may attempt to remove the cause of the paralysis by influencing the nutrition of the parts where such causes are situated, by acting on the sympathic nerve branches supplying the blood vessels of the parts. Thus it is asserted d that the absorption of a clot in the brain may be hastened and that the condition of a damaged brain may be improved by acting upon the cervical sympaastille aroberts.

cDr. W. Mitchel.

bEdes.

bRadcliffe.

dDr. Vorsian Poore.

thetic nerve. It is usual to commence the treatment by using the weakest current.e

Electricity has been employed in obstinate constipation, depending upon muscular atony of the large intestine. An insulated electrode may be introduced into the rectum, and a large sponge covered rheophore, well moistened, is passed over the wall of the abdomen, to bring every part of the large intestine within circuit.e It is employed with advantage in acute primary dementia, in chronic melancholia, but was found useless in chronic dementia.f It has excellent results in mental symptoms, such as confusion of ideas, impaired memory, hypochondriasis, vertigo, etc., which result from imperfect nutrition of the brain, caused by degeneration of the cerebral vessels. It is useful in cases of narcosis induced by opium and chloroform, failure of respiration being obviated by Faradization of the muscles of respiration.

It is also used as a means of inducing uterine contraction in cases of post-partum haemorrhage.

In tic-douleureux, sciatica, and other neuralgias it is employed with great advantage, also in nervous aphonia, amaurosis and amenorrhoea.e

Nothing is more certain in therapeutics than the relief of pain by galvanization of the affected nerve or nerves. Both forms of electricity are employed for the relief of pain, but the galvanic current will be found generally to be most applicable. The effects of both forms ought to be tried in every case of neuralgia, as electricity will often give relief when every other known remedy fails. Lumbago, sciatica, and other painful conditions of the muscle commonly described as rheumatic, often yield to the galvanic or the interrupted current.e