On the contractility or irritability of the muscles of paralysed limbs, and their excitability by the galvanic current, in comparison with the corresponding muscles of healthy limbs / by Robert Bentley Todd.
- Date:
- [1847]
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: On the contractility or irritability of the muscles of paralysed limbs, and their excitability by the galvanic current, in comparison with the corresponding muscles of healthy limbs / by Robert Bentley Todd. 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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![the magneto-electric rotation machine: by this^ active move- ments were excited in the healthy leg and arm; none in the palsied leg, very slight and feeble contractions in the palsied arm. On applying the poles directly to the palsied limbs contractions Avere excited, but even these Avere extremely feeble and partial. This experiment Avas Avitnessed by Mr. Dunn. On the 26th of May I repeated the experiment. The pa- tient had acquired rather more consciousness and strength, hut the palsied limbs were apparently unchanged. When the current Avas passed through both arms, by means of the basins, only one or tivo muscles of the paralysed arm were feeblv ex- cited, Avhereas the sound one was throAvn into energetic action. The same results precisely were observed in the legs. Mr. Dunn was present and assisted at this experiment likeAvise. I am indebted for the next and the two folloAving eases to my friend Dr. Babington, of Guy’s Hospital, Avho requested Dr. Novelli, a A^ery intelligent and competent manipulator, to apply the galvanism. Dr. Novelli has kindly funiished me AAdth his notes of the experiments. Case 11.—Eliz. Beaumont, mt. 33, admitted for hemiplegia of six Aveeks duration. The whole of the right side was para- lysed. Three Aveeks after her admission, i. e. nine weeks after the paralytic attack, the folloAving experiment was made:— The hands were immersed each in a separate basin of warm water, Avhich were in turn respectively connected AA'ith the electrodes of a magneto-electric machine of feeble power. No effect whatever was produced upon the right arm, hut the muscles of the left, i. e. the sound limb, Avere attacked Avith spasmodic quiverings and involuntary contractions. The hands Avere noAv removed and the feet substituted. A pre- cisely similar result Avas obtained ; the muscles of the sound leg being excited to irregular and involuntary action, while the paralysed limb remained quiescent. Tlic patient left the hospital about a fortnight afterAvards Ain])euehtcd by the treatment employed. Previous to her dc-](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b2195365x_0012.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
