Nerve-vibration and excitation as agents in the treatment of functional disorder and organic disease.

  • Granville, J. Mortimer (Joseph Mortimer), 1833-1900.
Date:
1883
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Nerve-vibration and excitation as agents in the treatment of functional disorder and organic disease. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Augustus C. Long Health Sciences Library at Columbia University and Columbia University Libraries/Information Services, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the the Augustus C. Long Health Sciences Library at Columbia University and Columbia University.

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    the percuteur be applied with the flat-headed hammer over the lower dorsal, lumbar, and sacral, spines, and with the pointed ivory hammer, over the perineal nerves —striking these branches firmly—it is generally pos- sible, in the course of a few days, to render the nerves so responsive, that the bowels act regularly, not be it ob- served, immediately after the nerve-vibration, but at the next habitual period. In only one instance have I known defalcation to occur soon after the percussion, and this was a case of locomotor ataxia. This effect followed the first administration of the vibration, and was not repeated, although the patient was under treatment for a month. The bowels acted regularly, or nearly so, every day, but not in any discernible relation to the remedy, so far as the immediate effects of vibration are concerned. I do not think it possible that so very slight a motion as is communicated by the percuteur, when most forcibly applied, can ever act on the bowels directly. It is only by reducing the nervous irritability, and heightening the response to the reflex generally, habitual constipation may be remedied. Employed or applied directly with the expectation of a speedy result, percussion cannot do otherwise than fail. It is beginning to be recognized, but cannot yet be said to be commonly known, that albumen may and does appear in perfectly healthy urine, under conditions which either raise the tension of the blood in the vessels of the kidney to a very high point, or render the blood surcharged with albuminous material, as for example, when a patient lives almost exclusively on eggs. It is of course well-known that the urine often contains