The conditions of the unipolar stimulation in physiology and therapeutics / by A. de Watteville.

  • Watteville, A. de (Armand), 1846-1925.
Date:
[1879?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The conditions of the unipolar stimulation in physiology and therapeutics / by A. de Watteville. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    [Reprinted from ‘Brain,’ Part IX.] V W 11 1 ' THE CONDITIONS OF THE UNIPOLAR STIMULA- TION IN PHYSIOLOGY AND THERAPEUTICS. BY A. DE WATTEVILLE, Assistant-Physician to the Hospital for Epilepsy and Paralysis, Regent's Parle. By electrotonus is meant that condition of altered irritability of a nerve which is produced by the flow through it of a current of electricity; and this altered irritability manifests itself by increased or diminished reaction of the nerve to the various stimuli, whether mechanical, physical, or chemical, which may be applied to it. Du Bois Reymond, who introduced this word in physiology,1 at first implied by it merely the changes in the electromotive manifestations of the nerve which accompany the changes in its irritability. A clear recognition of the latter, says i, Heimann, does not occur in any of the older physiologists, nor in Du Bois Reymond’s great work. Valentin3 was the i first to show that the polarised portion of the nerve does not : readily transmit impulses from above; and that the irrita- jji bility of the part below it is diminished when the polarising 1 current is centripetal, or ascending. Eckhard4 observed that [ when the current is descending, an opposite condition of J augmented irritability below the polarised portion existed. ? i Hence he formulated as a general law that irritability is Bincreased beyond the kathode, or negative pole; diminished r beyond the anode, or positive pole. f PfluSer> by a series of admirable experiments, eliminated all [ the sources of error which beset this difficult field of inquiry, |ian resolved all the phenomena into his dictum The irri- - < rinte!fUC!'Ung0n Ubcr thicrische Elektricitat,’ 1848, 1849. Hundbuch der Physiologie,’ vol. ii. part i. p. 41, 1879. 4 , .rbuch der Physiologic,’ 2nd Ed., 1848.