ON THE 
APPLICATION OF ELECTRICITY 
TO THE 
CEYTEAL YEEYOUS SYSTEM. 
A REPLY TO THE OBJECTIONS OF ANSTIE, BROWN-SEQUAED, 
CYON, AND OTHERS. 
A. D. ROCKWELL, M. D., 
BY 
ELECTRO-THERAPEUTIST TO THE HEW TORE STATE WOMAN’S HOSPITAL. 
[REPRINTED FROM THE NEWYORK MEDICAL JOURNAL, SEPT., 1873.] 
NEW YORK; 
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY, 
54 9 & 551 BROADWAY. 
1870. 0N THE APPLICATION OF ELECTRICITY TO 
THE CENTRAL NERYOUS SYSTEM. A REPLY 
TO THE OBJECTIONS OF ANSTIE, BROWN- 
SEQUARD, CYON, AND OTHERS. 
It seems to be the fate of electro-therapeutics, in spite of 
its great and growing popularity, to be met at every stage of 
its advance by severe opposition. We do not deprecate this; 
we believe rather that here, as in every branch of science, con- 
flict is to be courted more than feared, and that the discipline 
and exercise and watchfulness that are required to provide 
for and overcome opposition will tend to make the growth of 
electro-therapeutics more healthful and more permanent. At 
the present time, every special advance or attempt at advance 
on the part of electro-therapeutists encounters the same kind 
of difficulties that beset its birth and infancy—with this differ- 
ence only, that now they are overcome much more speedily. 
The processes of opposition, and the laws by which it devel- 
ops, are the same now as they were one hundred years ago. 
The same objections that are now brought against central 
galvanization, general faradization, electrolysis, localized gal- 
vanization of the nerve-centres, and to the use of electricity 
in certain special diseases in medicine and surgery, have been 
successively brought against peripheral faradization and gal- 
vanization in the treatment of paralysis. Among those phy- 
sicians who sympathize with civilization and the nineteenth 6 
most potent of remedial agents. There are those who can 
hear it in wellnigh limitless doses. 
There are those who can bear it and who are benefited by 
it, bnt only when given with delicacy and great caution. 
Now, it is possible to galvanize tlie cervical sympathetic in all 
three classes, except the first, without doing any serious in- 
jury, permanent or temporary. 
All our most potent remedies are dangerous when used dan- 
gerously. 
The most recent and most radical objection to galvaniza- 
tion of the brain comes from Dr. E. Cyon,1 of St. Petersburg. 
In attempting to reply to his objections, w’e are reminded of 
a remark once made by one of our most eminent medical au- 
thorities : that “ there is a tendency in this country to accept 
with deference any new theories, provided they come from a 
great distance” The objections brought by Cyon are so stale 
and so inconsistent, and withal have been so often refuted by 
practical experience, that if brought by any one residing in 
our midst they would not be regarded as worthy of considera- 
tion. His objections to the method of galvanization of the 
brain introduced by Hemak (not to our method of central gal- 
vanization, which is a method radically different) are these: 
1. That a current of sufficient strength to penetrate and 
affect the portions of the brain that are most liable to disease, 
as the corpora striata, optic thalami, and pons Yarolii, cannot 
be applied to the head without doing more harm than good 
by also irritating other parts. 
2. That the cases which have been treated by this method 
have been so carelessly and unscientifically studied, and so 
recklessly reported, that they have no scientific value. He 
states that electro-therapeutists profess to make precise diag- 
1 “Principes d’fllectro-tlffirapie.” Paris, 1873, pp. 190-196. This trea- 
tise, which was written in 1868-69, is of necessity considerably behind the 
times. It discourses upon certain questions of electro-physics, physiology, 
and therapeutics, in a philosophical manner, although on all points in which 
he is correct he has been anticipated long ago by other writers. The er- 
rors and defects of the work, which are very conspicuous in the chapter 
above referred to, are indirectly the result of narrow or insufficient prac- 
tical experience, and utterly incorrect notions as to the therapeutical action 
of electricity. 7 
noses of the seat of brain-diseases, and then treat them by 
galvanization of the brain, combined with various other reme- 
dies, and the results, if favorable, are published forthwith. 
Dr. Cyon goes on to say that such in general is the value of 
the observations that are given as proofs of the curative effects 
obtained. This statement we believe to be thoroughly untrue. 
What is true of certain Germans and Russians is not true 
of all, if indeed of the majority of electro-therapeutists. The 
therapeutics of galvanization of the. brain have been studied by 
men who have been trained to the habit of close and discrimi- 
nating observation; who recognize and bear constantly in 
mind the enormous complications that beset all therapeutics; 
who have worked under the gaze of watchful skeptics, and 
with the everlasting motto, post hoc ergo propter hoc, inces- 
santly ringing in their ears; men, too, who have carried con- 
science into science, and have reported the results to the world 
just as they were revealed to them. 
It is of very little practical consequence Vhether these ef- 
fects already alluded to are due to the direct passage of the 
current through the brain or to the reflex action of the current 
on the brain through the sensory nerves. Reflex action comes 
in to explain the therapeutic effects of electricity, however and 
wherever applied. Granting for one moment, what is not 
true, that mild currents cannot penetrate the brain, this would 
be no reason whatever for abandoning the electrical treatment 
of the brain so long as experience shows that benefit is derived 
thereby. It is, however, not true that mild currents do not 
penetrate the brain. The experiments of Burckhardt and 
Ziemssen, with which Cyon seems not to be familiar, have 
shown very clearly that the galvanic current can be sent 
through the parts of the brain that we chiefly desire to affect 
by comparatively mild external applications. 
These experiments were made with a very delicate reflect- 
ing galvanometer—needles connected with which were insert- 
ed into the brain through the skull—while the galvanic cur- 
rent was applied externally.1 
But even were Cyon correct in his physical and physiolo- 
1 These experiments are recorded in Ziemssen’.s “ Electricitat in der 
Medicin,” fourth edition, 1872, erste halfte, pp, 27-39, 8 
gical theories, he is not warranted, on the strength of those 
theories alone, in recommending electro-therapeutists, who 
are every day relieving and curing patients by galvanizing 
the brain, to abandon that method. Therapeutics is one sci- 
ence, physiology is another. Of all the sciences, physiology 
is the least exact, and, until some genius shall arise who 
shall do for it what Newton did for celestial dynamics, it must 
remain inexact. Pathology, which, as has been well said, is 
but the shady side of physiology, is also inexact. If we know 
not the nature of life, we cannot know the nature of death. 
Only so far as physiology, which deals ■with life, becomes ex- 
act and complete, can pathology, which deals with the various 
degrees of death, become exact and complete. On both of 
these sciences we should hold our opinions as a Bedouin Arab 
holds his tents, ready to be up and off at a moment’s warning. 
Therapeutics, then, which is a science of experience, can- 
not be thoroughly taught in the laboratory of the physiologist 
or pathologist. Physiology and pathology, which are now 
but masses of rapidly-accumulating facts and theories, at best 
partial, one-sided, and ill-defined, and oftentimes erroneous, 
where each new doctrine swallows up its predecessors, to be in 
turn devoured by the doctrines of the future, cannot furnish a 
basis for rational electro-therapeutics. Hence our objections 
to the statement reiterated in books, in lectures, and in jour- 
nals, that electro-physiology must be the basis for all electro- 
therapeutics. 
If it depended on electro-physiology for its existence and 
advancement, electro-therapeutics would die, and with little 
hope of resurrection. For what, indeed, do we know of electro- 
physiology \ 
Even the researches of Du-Bois Beymond on animal elec- 
tricity are already losing ground, and high authority declares 
that the so-called muscular current is a myth.1 We know 
more of the physiological action of electricity on the body than 
1 ¥e refer to the researches of Prof. John Trowbridge, of Harvard 
University. A resume of his experiments and his conclusions, obtained 
from correspondence and from abstracts of papers that have been published 
by him, have already been presented to the Electro-Therapeutical Society 
of Hew York, and will in time be published. 9 
of the physiological action of our most used internal medicines, 
hut our knowledge is not enough to make a satisfactory basis 
for the science of electro-therapeutics. If there is any thing 
in the world that electricity can do, it is to relieve pain, but 
how could such power be predicted from our present knowl- 
edge of electro-physiology and pathology? We find by expe- 
rience that it does relieve pain, and then by physiology and 
pathology try to explain as best we can how it does it. 
The method of using electricity that we have devised and 
employed during the past three years, we have termed central 
galvanization,1 to distinguish it from the five other methods of 
using electricity. This method, when employed by those who 
have become familiar with it, is absolutely safe, and should 
never cause, even in the most impressible, effects either dan- 
gerous or alarming. Moreover, this method is incomparably 
more efficient as a tonic remedy in diseases of the central ner- 
vous system, than any localized treatment of those parts. 
The objection urged by Cyon, that, because we cannot tell 
the precise seat of the lesion, therefore we should not attempt 
galvanization of the brain, is unworthy of a practical thera- 
peutist. 
That we cannot always and truly tell the exact seat of the 
lesion in many diseases of the brain, those who know most of 
nervous diseases will be most ready to concede; but in galvan- 
izing the brain it is not necessary to know the precise patholo- 
gy. The healthy as wrell as the diseased parts of the brain 
may be traversed by the current with benefit. 
The tendency of electrization, as of other tonic remedies, is 
to restore diseased parts to health, to make strong parts still 
stronger. 
The best results of electrical treatment are not obtained 
by confining the direct action of the current to the seat of the 
disease, but by a subdivision of central, general, and peripheral 
treatment. In hemiplegia, for example, depending on one- 
sided cerebral lesion, much benefit is derived from faradization 
of the paralyzed muscles, some benefit from galvanization of 
1 This method was described in a general way in the Medical Record, 
December 15,1871, and in full detail in the New York Medical Journal, 
October, 1873, and was illustrated by cases in the same journal, May, 1873. 10 
the brain and of the cervical sympathetic, and very great bene- 
fit oftentimes, especially in the debilitated, from general fara- 
dization and central galvanization, and the best results of all 
may appear when all the different methods have been em- 
ployed. If we refuse to galvanize the brain, because we do 
not fully understand its physiology and pathology, we must, 
to be consistent, reject the medical use of electricity in every 
mode of application. While we probably know more of the 
action of electricity on the body than of the action of almost 
any other remedy, we do not know enough to determine with 
certainty just what its precise, complete, and ultimate action 
is in any disease or on any part of the human system. 
We do know by experience that, when properly applied to 
the body in some one of the half-dozen different general meth- 
ods now employed, it relieves pain, induces sleep, and improves 
local and general nutrition as no other single remedy can do, 
and on the basis of this experience, rather than on the physio- 
logical basis, we employ it. 
Meanwhile, it is certainly proper to extend, so far as pos- 
sible, our knowledge of physiology, pathology, and of physics 
also, so that we may perhaps explain our therapeutics and 
make it more scientific. 
Pushed to their necessary conclusions, the arguments of 
Cyon would not only deprive the world of electro-therapeutics, 
but of therapeutics of every form, and even of hygiene itself. 
If physicians must wait for physiology and pathology to at- 
tain exactitude; if we must know just where medicine goes 
when it enters the system, and just what it does when it gets 
there; if we are to abstain from treating any disease whose 
pathology is not fully revealed; and if we are to be required 
to limit the action of our remedies solely to the part that is 
diseased, then we have only to close our medical schools, our 
offices, and our drug-shops, surrender our diplomas, and in a 
body attend the funeral of the science of medicine. 
Among other statements of Cyon to which exception may 
be taken, is the following : 
He says that.Smee’s battery is not adapted for electro- 
therapeutics, and that the faradic current should not be used 
on the spine. In the face of the facts that the patients cured 11 
or relieved by Smee’s battery may be numbered by tens of 
thousands, and that the faradic current in the hands of hun- 
dreds of physicians is every day applied to the spine with less 
risk of causing injury than if the galvanic current were used, 
and sometimes relieving spinal symptoms more successfully 
than the galvanic, a formal reply seems needless. 
Who could tell beforehand, without experience, whether 
opium would produce sleep ? Who could predict that arsenic 
would act as a tonic, and is there a living man who knows 
how it so acts ? How long would it have taken physiology 
and pathology to have discovered the uses of ninety-five ont 
of a hundred of the remedies in daily use for the relief and 
cure of disease ? 
It is experience that has given us these remedies, and it is 
experience that perpetuates their use among men of science, 
while physiology and pathology are slowly helping us to use 
remedies more intelligently. 
Just as therapeutics in general, based on experience, is far 
in advance of physiology and pathology in general, so electro- 
therapeutics, also based on experience, is, we are happy to 
say, far in advance of electro-physiology and electro-pathology. 
For those who are entering upon the study of electro-thera- 
peutics, the following suggestions, based on the above remarks, 
may perhaps appropriately be offered : 
1. That they make themselves masters of electro-physics, 
especially of those principles and laws that directly or indi- 
rectly have a practical bearing on electro-therapeutics. Elec- 
tricity in its physical relations is a study of great difficulty, 
but it is as enticing as it is difficult, and will, for its own sake, 
and without reference to its practical application, repay the 
most studious attention. But, whether attractive or not, the 
principles of electro-physics must be mastered by those who 
aspire to mastership in electro-therapeutics. A knowledge of 
physiology and pathology, however profound, will not supply 
its place. Many, if not most, of the discouragements of those 
who begin the study of electro-therapeutics, are the result of 
a defective knowledge of the physical principles of the general 
science of electrology. 
In the construction, modification, repair, and management 12 
of batteries and electrodes, and in the endeavor to understand 
the and complex phenomena of electro-physiology 
and stand in constant need of clear ideas on 
electro-physics. 
2. That they do not allow themselves to be carried away 
by the specious but utterly erroneous notion that electro-thera- 
peutics must be based on electro-physiology. We have been 
taught in certain quarters that electro-therapeutics is the 
daughter of electro-physiology; it would be more just to re- 
gard the two sciences as sisters of pretty nearly the same age. 
The best growth and development, however, has thus far been 
obtained by electro-therapeutics. 
It is well to acquire and compass the fragmentary facts 
that make up what is known as electro-physiology, and by ex- 
periments on animals and on the human subject, living and 
dead, to confirm or correct what are supposed to be its laws. 
But in electro-physiology the facts and science of to-day may 
be the fallacies and superstitions of to-morrow. To build on 
such a foundation is to build on sand. 
3. To remember always that the basis of electro-therapeu- 
tics, as of all other therapeutics, is clinical experience. He 
who attempts to build on any other foundation must surely 
fail. The most that physiology can do for electro-therapeu- 
tics is to guide, to explain, to illustrate, to confirm. 
4. That they think and experiment independently for them- 
selves on this subject, and be not cowed by distant authority.