The value of electrical treatment / by Julius Althaus.

  • Althaus, Julius, 1833-1900.
Date:
1899
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The value of electrical treatment / by Julius Althaus. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    will be to the diseased portion of the organ. This rule, however, cannot always be rigidly enforced, partly because it is sometimes difficult to strictly localise the focus of the affection, and partly because a symptomatic treatment is sometimes of considerable assistance, in addition to treat- ment directed to the actual seat of the complaint. Thus experience has shown that in hemiplegia we should not simply act upon the suffering hemisphere, but on the para- lysed limbs as well. Again, it is often useful in peripheral palsies to apply the current, not simply to the suffering nerve, but likewise to its nutritive centre in the bulb or spinal cord. Miiller, of Wiesbaden, has expressed these different rules by the axiom : leve, breve, scspe, et in loco morbi. Mode of Action of the Constant Current. It has been frequently stated that we know nothing about the way in which electricity acts, and that it is therefore irrational, or grossly empirical and arbitrary, to employ it in therapeutics. I have been much surprised to find that Professor Horsley has lately committed himself to a similar solecism. If such a principle with its logical consequences were adopted, it would imply the abandonment of our most trustworthy drugs, of the mode of action of which in the system we know even less than of that of electricity. No one has yet been able to find out in what way mercury or iodide of potassium produce their effects upon the different tissues of the body; yet, we know that these remedies if properly used have a powerful influence for good, and we therefore utilise them daily in the practice of our profession. In the present state of our knowledge it would be utterly absurd to rely more on physiology than on clinical experience. Of course, when applying electricity to a patient we must be thoroughly acquainted with, and to a great extent guided by, a knowledge of its physio- logical effects upon the different tissues of the body ; yet