Therapeutic electricity and practical muscle testing / by W.S. Hedley.

  • Hedley, W. S. (William Snowdon)
Date:
1899
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Therapeutic electricity and practical muscle testing / by W.S. Hedley. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    that dis-symmetrieal alternating current universally familiar as the current of the medical induction apparatus. Still availing himself of the same supply he heats his cautery, lights an exploring lamp, or charges his accumulators; or, passing the current through a motor, he drives his static machine or actuates his therapeutic alternator. The latter can in its turn be arranged to supply a current having all the smoothness and other qualities of that known as sinu- soidal/' and with its rapidity, its electromotive force, and even the shape of its electromotive force curve, under absolute control. If the current that is supplied in the street mains be an alternating one, it is passed through a trans- former to apply it to the body, to electrise the water-bath, to light the exploring lamp, and to heat the cautery. The most recent addition to our resources are those currents of great frequency and high potential, under whose influence the respiratory combustions have been shown to increase, skin action to become more active, arterial tension to fall, certain bacilli to die, certain toxines to lose their toxicity. These currents, first experimented with by d'Arsonval, have proved useful in the treatment of rheuma- tism, gout, asthma, and diabetes. Thus the scope of therapeutic electricity is widened. Its usefulness is no longer limited to diseases of the nervous system; its procedures no longer confined to localised methods. I/electrisation localisee, the watchword of Duchenne, now covers only half the ground. The great feature of modern practice is that the latter no longer limits itself to strictly local applications, but that it also resorts to such methods of general electrisation as have a demonstrable influence on the nutritive processes and on cell life ; and what the physician aims at by treatment of this kind is so to modify the perverted vital activity of cells and tissues as to strengthen their resist- ance to morbific agencies, and arouse their inherent recu- perative power. This is all that treatment can accomplish. Cure is the work of the living cell.
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