HEALING AGENT

Dominion, Volume 33, Issue 281, 22 August 1940, Page 2

HEALING AGENT

Use Of Electricity Electrical treatment seems to lie entering more and more successfully every year into hospital practice for dealing with human ailments, specially those pertaining to the nervous system, says “The Electric Times.” London. A striking example of one new development was described recently by Dr. Francis E. Fox in the “British Medical Journal.” Electric shock has beeu applied on a sort of trial-and-error basis for quite a long time past, but careful research has now brought it nearer to the domain of exact science. Dr. Fox discusses several cases. No. 1 is that of a woman, aged 35, suffering from katatonic stupor. Alter being doctored for two years with insulin and other accepted methods she was subjected to electric shock. It induced convulsions, but soon afterward there was a definite change; “the mists ot confusion seemed to have begun to lift.” After three of these induced fits of convulsion, presumably with intervals between, the patient began taking her food with considerable relish, she be- • came interested in things that previousi Iv she bad looked upon with a dull eye and recovered the normal use of speech. But we need not enter into detail. After a course of 14 shocks the patient left the doctor’s care, and now, three months having elapsed, she remains normal, stable, and has put on weight. Cures are also reported of a man of 35. another of 25. a woman of 63 and some other patients, all of them victims of brain and nerve disorders of a depressive stupor nature. Dr. Fox is medical superintendent at Brislington House, Bristol. The quack with his electric belt of the Victorian era dealt electro-therapy a blow from which it took many years to recover: almost every electro-medical device came under public suspicion. And now at last it gives promise of accomplished cures where all other curative agents have proved impotent.