benefit. In preference to the insertion of needles, Electrolysis. mould a very thin sheet of copper, hardly thicker than paper, to the entire surface of the tumour. Cover this copper with a flannel and fix it by a binding screw to the conductor from the negative pole of the battery. Before use, soak the flannel well in a saturated solution of salt in water, and when applied to the tumour, place the positive pole with a well-wetted sponge as near as possible to it, and allow a current as strong as the patient can bear without pain to pass for from twenty minutes to an hour daily, or every second day. The same treatment is occasionally useful in ganglionic tumours and in chronic articular affections with nodosities, which have not been benefited by prior treatment. If needles are used, introduce two or three, or even four, of steel gilt, into the most prominent part of the tumour to a depth of two or three inches, and connect them with the negative pole of about ten cells. Apply the positive pole as already directed.

tions to the

tricity.

Contra-indications to the use of Electricity.-In ac- Contra-indicatual softening of brain or spinal cord; in active or use of Elecsevere inflammations or congestions, whether central or peripheral; in great exaltation of reflex action, after recent paralytic seizures, and in those conditions generally in which active medication is contra-indicated, electricity, except as a mild continuous voltaic current, should not be employed.

Concluding
Remarks.

In the foregoing pages I have endeavouredassuredly not to exhaust my subject-but, eschewing debatable ground, to indicate the prominent landmarks in the wide and unexhausted field of electrotherapeutics. My object will have been answered if I have succeeded in clearly describing the different modes of applying electricity, and the apparatus by which the application is best made; also in specifying those cases in which the use of some one or other of the different varieties of electricity is imperatively demanded; and those cases again where other remedies having been tried and failed-we may hopefully resort to this agent, and in which it were surely a neglect of duty to let the disease run on without giving the patient the benefit of its thorough trial.

In conclusion I would state that the medical practitioner who prescribes electricity, should either administer it himself, or cause it to be administered by a skilled operator. The experience of the National Hospital for the Paralysed and Epileptic, and my own experience in private practice, show conclusively that when patients themselves apply electricity, the result has been very unsatisfactory. The most explicit directions will often be misunderstood, or fail in being correctly carried out, the treatment getting undeserved discredit. The rule of practice here laid down is particularly applicable to the localized application of electricity.