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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    story is repeated of the publication of an idea by another person by whom it was conceived long after the one who first thought of it, but who did not proclaim it to the world. In justice to himself, Dr. Granville should forthwith point out how he arrived at the idea, and state his experience of its practical enforcement. Meanwhile it may be interesting to summarize the statements of M. Boudet de Paris, who writes on the subject in the current number of Le Progres Medical. After alluding to Dr. Brown-Sequard's observation that chloroform applied over the skin of an animal produces general anaesthesia by its irritant action on the peri- pheral nerves, he points out that all irritants or re- vulsives may be placed in one category—such as actual cautery, hypodermic injections of water, application of metals, magnets, tuning-forks, electricity, vesicatories, sinapisms, compresses steeped in ether or chloroform, a motley group, but each intended for the same end— the relief of pain ; they all operate by irritating the terminal twi^s of sensory nerves. Vulpian long ago showed th$ -;Ood effect of the local application of chlo- roform ; i d Landouzy has recently pointed out the remarkable influence in controlling the cough of phthisis by hypodermic injections of water ; whilst the cautery, acupuncture, and each of the forms of electricity are commonly applied to relieve pain. The action of metallic applications—metallo-therapy—of which we have heard so much in the last few years, was best ex- plained on the theory of vibrations by Vigouroux, who proceeded to experiment upon the effect of sonorous vibrations, which he thought might have a direct