Practical notes on the use of galvanism and faradism in the diagnosis and treatment of disease / by Julius Althaus.

  • Althaus, Julius.
Date:
1876
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Practical notes on the use of galvanism and faradism in the diagnosis and treatment of disease / by Julius Althaus. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by King’s College London. The original may be consulted at King’s College London.

    58/104 (page 50)
    I follow the rule to postpone the galvanic treatment until the danger of cerebral fever, which so often follows an attack of hsemorrhage, has entirely passed oS, and as this, if it occurs at all, comes on within ten days after the stroke, the application of the continuous current may be considered safe two or three weeks after the attack. If we were to wait much longer, the prospects of Tiltimate recovery would certainly be diminished. We know that if the paralysis continues for six months or longer after the rupture of a blood-vessel or softening, wasting of the nervous matter in a certain portion of the spinal cord is apt to come on; and when this wasting has become fully established, any further therapeutical efforts must inevitably fail. Pathological anatomy, therefore, plainly warns us not to defer the galvanic treatment of paralysis from brain disease longer than a short time after the occurrence of the attack. In cases where the continuous current is applied early—that is, about three weeks after the occurrence of the attack—it is sufficient to apply it to the injured hemisphere of the brain and the region of the cervical sympathetic nerve. After a few applications there is. gene- rally greater ease in the head as well as in the