chiefly, because the therapeutic indications
are almost always the same in both. Whatever the cause in any given
case, whether cerebral, spinal or peripheral, organic or functional;
whatever the treatment that may be indicated--and this should never be
neglected--for the primary trouble, the direct electrical treatment of
the paralysis, sub-paralysis or paresis, being purely _symptomatic_
treatment, remains in the great majority of cases essentially the same.
The objects to be aimed at are two, viz: _first_, a normal state of
nutrition of the affected muscles; _second_, their normal contractility.
In other words, we are to endeavor to prevent atrophy of the affected
muscles, or, where this has already taken place to some extent, to
restore their normal bulk; and, _second_, we must strive to restore the
more or less impaired contractility of the paralytic or paretic muscles.
Even where symptomatic treatment for these purposes is the _only_
treatment employed in a case, we frequently meet to a great extent the
_indicatio morbi_, by favorably influencing, either in a reflex or
direct manner, the primary disease. This is true of _local_
electrizations of the affected parts; it holds good much more strongly
however of _electric baths_, because here, in addition to the reflex
influence that we get from local applications, we have also the direct
influence of the electric current on the spinal cord and posterior
portion of the brain not only, but on the sympathetic system and all the
important organs contained in the thoracic and abdominal cavities. The
great importance of this is apparent, when we reflect that in very many
if not most cases of disease of the nervous system, central or
peripheral, electricity in an appropriate form is a useful therapeutic
agent, and that moreover the great majority of functional paralytic
disorders respond favorably to its influence. As for any harm being done
by it in those rare cases where its use may be contra-indicated, I admit
that such may accrue from the administration of electric baths without
medical supervision; it is entirely obviated however where the baths are
under the supervision of a physician, who does not, like a layman,
indiscriminately admit to their use any and everybody who is willing to
pay for their administration, but will carefully discriminate, and
conscientiously exclude those cases in which general electrization might
result injuriously. In such cases a tolerably acc