Fourteenth annual reports for 1872 / Sussex County Lunatic Asylum, Haywards Heath.

  • Sussex County Lunatic Asylum (Haywards Heath, England)
Date:
1873
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Fourteenth annual reports for 1872 / Sussex County Lunatic Asylum, Haywards Heath. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    85/140 (page 35)
    Dr. Arndt does not seem to think it is applicable to melancholia; in fact, he believes that, in some cases, where the delirious conceptions have been of an agonising’ nature, these morbid feelings have been increased by the current. Nor does he believe it of any service in secon¬ dary forms of madness, such as dementia. But it is essen¬ tially in the states of simple depression that its results are favourable; it then acts by exciting the nervous centres. Consequently all cases which are already in a state of abnormal irritability would contraindicate its use. In short, he infers that the induced current is only applicable to cases of simple depression and feebleness of nerve force. The experiments that have been conducted at our asylum seem to confirm this statement, for we have found it most useful in those cases where there has been much excite¬ ment with depressed bodily functions —the mania of weak¬ ness. With regard to the application of the electrodes, Dr. Arndt’s experiments led him to conclude that it is not necessary nor advisable to act directly on the brain. For, according to his ideas, the majority of mental diseases have their origin either in the spinal cord or the medulla oblongata, and it is especially upon these parts that the current should be brought to bear. In rare cases does it seem desirable to employ anelectrotonos, that is to deprive the nervous centres of their irritability. He concludes by advising the greatest caution in every case, for electricity is not one of those agents which are not dangerous if they do no good, and a current badly applied may have disas¬ trous effects. He reminds us that the study of electro¬ therapy in mental diseases has only just begun, but that nevertheless the number of cases which can with certainty be considered to have been benefited by its use are so con¬ siderable that this agent ought to take rank amongst the therapeutic means at the physician’s disposal, and if at the present time the many trials that have been made do not appear very encouraging, the failure in the majority of cases may be attributed to it having been employed in a haphazard manner, without any very precise indications for its use.* * See also “Journal of Mental Science,” vol. xvii., p. 423.