Additional experiments on the excitability of paralysed and healthy limbs by the galvanic current / by R. B. Todd, M.D., F.R.S. (Physician to King's College Hospital).

  • Todd, R. B.
Date:
1853
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Additional experiments on the excitability of paralysed and healthy limbs by the galvanic current / by R. B. Todd, M.D., F.R.S. (Physician to King's College Hospital). Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Glasgow Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Glasgow Library.

    14/26 (page 12)
    turn. The patient frequently visits the hospital, and I have seen him within the last few days (May, 1853). He has not recovered the palsy, excepting, in a slight degree, that of the leg. The muscles of the fore-arm have become wasted and contracted, causing permanent flexion of the fingers, and of the fore-arm upon the arm, a condition which, in my opinion, is apt to follow the absorption of a clot, and the contraction and cicatrisation of the torn brain-substance. Case vii.—John Liftin, set. 55, admitted April 11th, 1850. On Easter-day (April 9th), at half-past ten o'clock in the morning, whilst walking across the room, he dropped a candlestick which he was carrying in his hand, and his wife then found that he had lost the U3e of his right side; he soon became very lethargic, with stertorous breathing; in this state he continued for some days. On coming out of this lethargy, he was completely paralysed, with relaxed muscles on the right side, the face, tongue, arm, and leg being affected, and his powers of articulation were very much impaired. Sensibility was not injured; on the con- trary, pinching the skin occasioned more pain in the para- lysed than in the sound limb. The galvanism was tried first on the 14th of April. With nine plates, the palsied side having the advantage of the direct current, much the strongest contractions were excited on the sound side. On inverting the current, very strong contractions were excited in the sound limb ; those in the paralysed were very slight. With eighteen plates, the current being direct in both arms, the contractions were strong and distinct in the sound side, very feeble in the paralysed. They were also very feeble in the legs, in which the current was inverse. This patient remained in the hospital many weeks. He recovered in the course of the first four weeks a certain amount of power in the leg, so as to enable him to walk with the characteristic hemiplegic jerk, but gained no power in the arm. On the 10th of June, a second trial was made with gal-