Considered solely as an aid to diagnosis, we can get little more assistance from electricity than I have pointed out to you.
And now, Gentlemen, we come to the consideration of the last and most important branch of our subject—electricity as a therapeutic agent—its scope and its limitations as a remedy.
Limitation of Electricity as a remedy.
Is it needful for me to say that there is too much belief and too much unbelief in its therapeutic power?
The men who estimate it fairly are quite the minority. It is generally either much undervalued, or else believed to be a sort of modern “Elixir Vitæ,” capable of curing a hopeless hemiplegia from destruction of brain tissue, or a paralysis agitans from senile degeneration. Although electricity will do neither of these impossibilities, yet, considered as a remedy, it is of great value in a wide margin of diseases. It will either stimulate or soothe both nerve and muscle, according to its variety and mode of application; it will frequently restore voluntary movement, it will relieve pain, heighten temperature, recall sensation, coagulate the blood, and dissolve or slowly cause the absorption of tumours.
B.—Electricity in Treatment.
FRANKLINIZATION.
Franklinization as the oldest form of electricity and as partaking more of a general application than a local, may be conveniently considered first.
Administered by the various methods described at pages [6 to 17], it has been found in the practice of the National Hospital for the Paralyzed and Epileptic, and in private cases coming under my own observation, of considerable value.|Facial Neuralgia.| Facial neuralgia, for example, which has resisted other modes of treatment, may occasionally be relieved with rapidity and permanently by drawing sparks along the track of the affected branch or branches of the trifacial nerve.|Sciatica.||Facial Spasms.| Sometimes also obstinate sciatica has been partially or altogether removed; so also facial spasm, (tic convulsif), as in the following instance, for permission to quote which I am indebted to Dr. Radcliffe. A female, forty-eight years of age, had suffered for thirteen years from spasm of the muscles of the left side of the face. The distortion produced by the spasm was very great, and was apt to be so much exaggerated by slight emotion, even such as would be caused by having to address a stranger, as to make speaking difficult, and to prevent proper attention to her occupation as a small shopkeeper. An experimental trial was made of electrization by sparks along the lines of the nerves distributed to the affected muscles. After the third application the spasm was manifestly relieved, the distortion being diminished, and the paroxysms occurring less frequently. By persisting with this treatment thrice weekly over a period of two months, so great an amount of relief was obtained that little distortion of the face remained, and the patient was able to pursue her business with comfort.|Emotional Aphonia.| Electrization by sparks over the larynx has been found so effective in the relief of cases of hysterical or emotional aphonia, even those of long standing, that it is well to use it in the treatment of these cases before having recourse to induced electricity. In six or seven recent cases, this form of application repeated twice or thrice effected a complete cure. One of these cases was of nine, another of six months’ duration. The remainder had lasted from four weeks to three months. The seventh case did not receive any benefit from the use of static electricity, and the other forms of the agent proved equally ineffective. The case recovered slowly under general treatment.|Localized Excessive Sensitiveness.| Electrization by sparks over the affected spot has often proved of great benefit in removing the localized excessive sensitiveness not unfrequently found in hysterical cases, particularly in the spinal region.|Tremor.| Tremor, whether general or local, is sometimes largely relieved by insulating the patient, and charging him with positive electricity for a period of twenty minutes to half an hour. Other applications failing, I would advise always, in cases similar to the above, a fair trial, say half a dozen sittings, of Franklinization.[14]