neuralgia, it is of course comparatively easy for us to
determine whether or not electricity promises to avail anything. But
even where the nature of the cases appeared to indicate its use, the
failures, in my hands at least, have outnumbered the successes. The
brilliant results--sometimes almost instantaneous--that we obtain now
and then, should not lead us into overlooking our failures. Undoubtedly
the circumstance that most of the cases that have come under my
observation were of a very obstinate nature, referred to me by other
physicians after varied unsuccessful treatment, has much to do with the
formation of my views as expressed above, and future experience may
perhaps lead me to modify them.

Speaking still from my own experience, I will state that the cases that
have proven the most amenable to treatment were, _first_, those of
rheumatic origin; _second_, hysterical neuralgiae, and, _third_, cases
where no assignable cause could be elicited. The most obstinate
varieties were those of a malarial type (even when quinine in large
doses or arsenic were employed in conjunction with galvanism) and those
that depended on some form of chronic inflammation--_neuritis_,
_periostitis_, etc. Of central neuralgiae, I have had excellent results
in the sympathetic variety and in the pains of posterior spinal
sclerosis, while in the neuralgiae of cerebral origin (diffuse cerebral
sclerosis, tumors, etc.) I have never met with any appreciable success.

Where, then, we are able accurately to diagnose a case, there cannot be
much doubt as to the appropriateness or not of electrical treatment, and
in cases whose origin is obscure, which may be considered practically
functional and therefore treated more or less empirically, electricity
holds out as much or more hope than any other remedy. Whether
electricity should be employed locally or in the form of baths, must
depend on the features presented by each individual case. In neuralgia
of the fifth pair--excepting those reflex cases where the _point
d'origine_ is to be sought for somewhere in the trunk or extremities,
and those that depend on cerebral hyperaemia or anaemia, where the
equalizing effects of the baths on the circulation are frequently of
great benefit--these are generally useless. Of other neuralgiae, I have
found the baths less successful in those of the superior than in those
of the inferior spinal nerves. Lumbo-abdominal neuralgia and sciatica
have yielded much mo