Electro-therapeutics of neurasthenia / by W.F. Robinson.

  • Robinson W. F.
Date:
1893
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Electro-therapeutics of neurasthenia / by W.F. Robinson. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

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    where electricity was tried and seemed to make the patient worse. This simply means that, owing to a large dose or an improper method of application, the irritating action had been produced to an undue de- gree. A word as to the importance of caution in the use of electricity in this disease. The agent we are using is a very powerful one and capable of doing a great deal of harm. Moreover, people of high-strung nervous organization are specially sensitive to it, just as they are to medicines. It will generally be found that these two go together; that is, patients who are very sensitive to drugs are equally so to electricity. In a paper read before the American Electro- Therapeutic Association, I dwelt on the importance of caution in certain cases of this disease, and put forth views which, as some of the members thought, went too far in this direction. This naturally recalled my attention to the subject, and I carefully went over what I had said, with the result of finding very little to retract. Moreover, every day that I use electricity impresses upon me more and more the importance of caution in its manipulation. During the past year there has appeared a work by Dr. Sperling of Berlin, entitled “ Studies in Elec- tro-Theapeutics.” In this little treatise he urges the therapeutic value of a current of one-half milliam- pere acting through an electrode of fifty square cen-