The united opinion. [volume] (Bradford, Vt.) 1881-1970, 1888-05-11
PHYSIOLOGY AND HYGIENE.
Erroneous Employment OF Electricity.
Useful Suggestions for the Toilet.


Erroneous Employment OF Electricity.
Useful Suggestions for the Toilet.
In considering the use and abuse of cleo
tricity in medical practice, Tho Medical
Register says, among other things, that many
fancy that there is nothing to be done but
start the current and apply the electrodes
that electricity can't do any harm if it
don't do any good, and that it's systematic
application is mere ceremony 1t is this lack
OF knowledge that begets lack OF faith both
in the patient and operator The careless
use OF the battery the ignorant application
OF galvanic and faradaic currents ad libitum,
not only fails signally, but may produce
genuinely deleterious effects. 1t is great
misfortune that the advertising of electricity
as a cure all has throwi. discredit on electro
therapeutics, which have been branded,
therefore, to some extent as a kind Of
quackery. This is even more SO with mag
netism
Occasionally we come across some who
nave really tried a battery, but it has, per-
maps, been the wrong current, applied too
strong or too weak and generally in the
wrong place altogether 1t is great pity
that II Is possible for people to tritle with
such valuable therapeutic agent as cleo
triclty which is often brought by pure
Ignorance into undeserved disrepute. But it
Is not only the unprofessional experimenters
who err in this way Many older or less
progressive practitioners, who hear the
merits OF electricity noised abroad, invoke
its agency without understanding properly
the mode or theory of its application. 1t is
in this way that the usefulness of a great
remedial agent is hindered and perverted.
To Prevent Death from ChlOrOform.
In paper read before the Baltimore Acad-
envy of Medicine, DR.. j. J. Chisholm reports
resusctaton in several desperate cases of ap-
parent death produced by chloroform, by sus-
pending the patient promptly by the feet, and
long enough to allow the blood to gravitate
to the brain. Should one be without assist
ance and unable to accomplish the object
otherwise, DR.. Chisholm advises to stoop
quickly, throw the patients legs over your
shoulders, hang on to the feet in front of you,
and then lift yourself The patients body,
as you get upon your own feet, will hang
from your back, with the head down. Now
you have time to call for help; but never wait
for the help to come before you practice sus-
pension, because with the moments delay
your patient .nay have passed from dying
into death.
DR.. Chisholm finds that the feeble pulse
will always respond promptly to suspension,
and this suspension is preferable to hypoder-
Mics OF whisky or ether, or the inhalations
of nitrate of amyl. Should vomiting occur
the suspended position is better for the pa
tient than while lying upon the table, be-
cause there is less liability of food particles
getting into the larynx. Inversion of the
body gives the contents of the stomach free
vent. Dr.. Chisholm has SO much confidence
in the value of suspension with chloroformed
subjects that he is disposed to believe that
the vital centers cannot fail with the body
hanging head down, and has often operated
with the body in this position when there
was tendency CT failure of the heart, even
living supnely.