On the medical use of galvanisation and faradisation / by Julius Althaus, M.D., member of the Royal College of Physicians; fellow of the Royal Medical and Chirurgical Society; senior physician to the Infirmary for Epilepsy and Paralysis.
- Julius Althaus
- Date:
- 1870
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: On the medical use of galvanisation and faradisation / by Julius Althaus, M.D., member of the Royal College of Physicians; fellow of the Royal Medical and Chirurgical Society; senior physician to the Infirmary for Epilepsy and Paralysis. Source: Wellcome Collection.
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![restless at night that she is obliged to take ‘ a penn’orth of laudanum,’ which makes her stupid the day after ; dreams a good deal, generally of horrible things; is irritable and low spirited; says that the least thing upsets her so,‘as if she had the palsy’; appetite ravenous; bowels costive. Ordered potass, brom. gr. xv. ter die, with tt]x of tinct. hyoscyami; emplastr. lytt. to epigastrium. May 23.—At last menstrual period had only two fits instead of six or eight as usual, and none ‘ between times.’ Feels better in herself; aurse not diminished in frequency, although blister has been repeated three times. Ordered a lotion of equal parts of tincture of iodine and water to be freely applied to starting-point of aura. Continue bromide. June 16.—Has had one fit since, but says that ‘ sensations have been dreadful.’ Ordered pure tinct. iodi to be applied to the epigastrium. June 30.—Iodine has blistered the skin ; aurse no better. Positive pole of twenty cells, with large conductor, to solar plexus, negative to ganglion cervicale superius of cervical sympathetic, first at right, then at left side. July 7.—Was five days without an aura after application of gal¬ vanism ; had two yesterday, but they had not nearly the same effect upon her as usual. Kep. galvanism, continue bromide. August 4.—Has had neither fit nor aura; mental health wonderfully improved. October 9.—Has had altogether eleven applications of galvanism. Neither fit nor aura for three months. Discharged. Asthma. Dr. Hyde Salter, in his able treatise on asthma, speaks strongly against the employment of galvanism in that disease, and condemns the ‘ passing galvanic shocks through the chest/ He says that he has known this to do great harm ; to bring on an attack in a patient at the time free from asthma; that it has, to his knowledge, aggravated existing spasm, but never done any good. Dr. Salter is at a loss to imagine what idea could have suggested the use of galvan¬ ism in asthma; but as he has taken himself great pains to prove that asthma is a nervous affection, depending upon a morbid condition, either of the pneumogastric nerve or the brain, and not upon structural disease of the heart or air-](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b30798802_0038.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
