The nature and treatment of diseases of the ear / by William Kramer.

  • Wilhelm Kramer
Date:
1837
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The nature and treatment of diseases of the ear / by William Kramer. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    63/336 page 41
    4] CHAPTER II. REMEDIES OF LOCAL ACTION. § 1. Hlectricity—I begin with the least curative of all, with a remedy, which, from the analogy it has always been believed to possess to the power that maintains the nervous influence, was naturally thought also to possess a mighty power of exciting and regulating the nervous influence. In theory, this opinion had everything in its favour, but in prac- tice, even in nervous diseases, the results, in almost all cases in which it was tried, concurred in as loudly condemning it. This is most unequivocally shown in diseases of the ear. Even in the middle of the eighteenth century, the Abbé Nollet (a), supported by his own investigations on the sub- ject, declared himself very decidedly against the medicinal efficacy of electricity, nor was he refuted by the proofs in favour of its efficacy, that were adduced by Bertholon (0), Mauduyt (c), Comus (d), Poma, and Rainaud (e). These proofs are most superficially maintained, are unsupported by any careful investigation of the ear, and thus of no scientific value, nor of any influence in deciding the present question. Mauduyt (f), for example, treated ten patients labouring under difficulty of hearing, by electricity; of these, four were not at all relieved, and six derived some pre- tended improvement, that is to say, the first of these at the close of the treatment heard the watch at a distance of eleven inches, which he had previously heard at the distance of two: a month later, this improvement still remained. (a) Encyclopédie, art. Electricité, 1755. (6) De lElectricité du Corps Humain, tom i. p. 502. (c) Mem. de la Societé Royale de Medicine, from the year 1778. ¢d) Journal de Physique, from 1775. (e) Journal de Medicine, from 1787. November. (Cf) Dict. des Sciences Med., art. Electricité.
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