Notes on the treatment of chronic skin diseases : with a report of 1,000 cases treated at the Skin Hospital, Hyde Road, Manchester / by H. Stanley Gale.

  • Gale, H. Stanley (Henry Stanley)
Date:
1873
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Notes on the treatment of chronic skin diseases : with a report of 1,000 cases treated at the Skin Hospital, Hyde Road, Manchester / by H. Stanley Gale. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    EFFECT ON THE SKIN. The action of the current on the skin varies according to its quantity, intensity, duration, and the resistance which it meets with. If a feeble current be kept up for some hours, destruction of the skin and subjacent textures will follow; if the current be more powerful, the effect is proportionately rapid. Remak states—and I have verified his statement again and again—that the positive pole relaxes the blood vessels, and reddens and depresses the skin, while the negative pole has a directly contrary effect. To produce these effects, takes from two to five minutes with one of Stohrer’s hospital batteries of 30 cells. No pain whatever is produced, although if we pass an induced current we have pain together with muscular and vascular contraction. In using the constant current the skin must be moistened; in using the induced current it must be dry (in the latter case, if moistened, the current passes to the deeper structures). The cells of the hair roots are also affected, and if a current be applied to skin covered with hair, the latter becomes more or less erect. MODE OF APPLICATION. The mode of applying the constant current is as follows:—Two sponges, varying in size according to circumstances, but usually about three inches in diameter, are inserted in metal cups connected with the battery by means of wires covered with some insulating material. One is applied to the