ELECTRIC SLEEP.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume LVII, Issue 8910, 9 November 1907, Page 3

ELECTRIC SLEEP.

NEW SUBSTITUTE FOR ANAES-

THETICS

M. Stephen Leduc, the eminent professor of the School of Medicine at Nantes, has recently discovered a method of causing "electric sleep," which, it is claimed, will in the near future replace chloroform and other anaesthetics in all surgical operations.

The discovery proceeded from the study of the effects of intermittent currents and from the knowledge that skull and brain offer but little resistance to the currents. For a human being the current is of thirty-five volts applied intermittently in full strength for minute fractions of a second. Two . electrodes are applied to the skull in a special manner, the points of application being first carefully shaved.

M. Leduc has made scores of experiments, says La Revue, on dogs and on himself. All were successful. The application of the current on the head is not dangerous. No ill effects follow, even when the experiment lasts for hours.

The advantages of "electric sleep" are numerous. Anaesethesia by chloroform, morphine or ether is disagreeable, is always dangerous, and has often proved fatal. The awakening is painful, the patient being ill and often very agitated. But during "electric sleep" the patient is perfectly quiet, and the awakening occurs as soon as the electrodes are withdrawn.

The sensations after the operation are quite agreeable ; the mind seems to think more clearly and more rapidly; and there is a sense of increased physical vigour. This has led M. Leduc to use his "brain-electrisation for cases of nervous exhaustion and even of ordinary fatigue and moral depression, with wonderful results.

Incidentally, the scient claims that the application in a certain manner of his special current will electrocute the subject in an absolutely painless manner, a gentle sleep being followed by gradual but certain death.