Dr. F. Barrett, Westbrook, Me.: There came under my care this winter a lady from Boston troubled with what I supposed to be spinal neuritis. She had been for a year or two under treatment of various kinds and had taken some electrical treatment in Boston with no benefit. Her history was that two or three times a week she would have paroxysms of intense pain which nothing would relieve but one-half grain of morphia, which sometimes had to be repeated in an hour. I was called during one of these attacks and gave her morphine, and told her to come to my office as soon as she was able for electric treatment, which she did. My method of treatment was to strip the back down to the hips and then placing the ordinary plate used on the static machine on a chair and a cushion over the plate, I connected that with one end of the high-frequency machine, the other end of machine is attached to a large surface vacuum electrode which I run up and down her spine. At each treatment she expressed great relief. After twelve or fourteen treatments there was complete relief. After keeping her under observation for two weeks with no return of her trouble, I sent her home. Two weeks later I received a letter saying that she was well and in better health than she had been for a number

of years.

Another case was that of a lady who had suffered for four years with a similar condition. She would be laid up in bed part of the time and the other part hardly able to be about the house. She did not believe much in electricity, but having tried all kinds of medicine and local treatments she decided to try electricity. I treated her in the same way as the first case, but with better results, giving her but six treatments. She failed to return as directed, and meeting her later, I learned that she was perfectly well.

Dr. Geo. D. Bond, Texas: The general modalities mentioned by Dr. Brockbank's paper are good and usually to be commended as the best; but there is a method of treating this condition by the X-ray that came to me accidentally, and one that I still use empirically. Some years ago before I had any experience with electricity or the X-ray, I had a patient, a boy eight years of age, suffering from severe pain in the back and the usual symptoms of lumbago, but usual remedies were without avail. In consultation it was suggested that there might be stone in kidney, and in company with his father I carried him to a neighboring city for an X-ray examination. The X-ray "specialist" knew nothing of the limitations or dangers of the X-ray, as was evidenced by him trying to locate the stone with the fluoroscope. No stone, of course, was found, but we certainly gave him a thorough exposure. There was serious danger of a burn, but fortunately this did not occur. After the exposure, however, he was immediately able to walk without assistance and never suffered afterward. It occurred to me

me at the time that the trouble might have been imaginative and that the effect must have been psychological; but since. knowing more of this electrical manifestation, and after using it in quite a number of intractable cases of lumbago, I am convinced that the X-ray has peculiar action on this part of the anatomy. It will relieve some cases much more rapidly than the usual electrical modalities, and even where they fail. This treatment must be empirical like many others are, until we can know more of what effect the X-ray does have on metabolism, but when any certain remedy comes to us, we should use it and work out the explanation as soon as we can, if we can. When we do away with empirics we will deprive humanity of many valuable remedies, and we should refuse no remedy that has proven itself valuable, because we can't explain its action. We will probably understand it as well as we have ever understood the so-called alterative action of mercury, and as we all know, the whole fabric of medicine is built on empiricism,

Dr. William Benham Snow: In exposing a carbuncle to the X-ray for twenty minutes we demonstrate a very marked contraction of the inflammatory tissue. I think in many cases of muscular strain or other inflammatory process the static modalities are employed without a definite notion of the depth of tissue involved and that the modality is accordingly not used with sufficient energy. I had recently a case in which I used the wave current for twenty minutes but with the spark-gap very long, and followed that with sparks, employing a spark director; thereby applying the spark to the place of greatest tenderness-the site of the lesion. By getting right down into the region of the inflammatory process with the sparks, as we can by means of the spark director, the condition is promptly dissipated.

If the conditions in the sacro-iliac region are not due to septic processes, but to a traumatic luxation, we can overcome the contractions in the muscular tissue and relieve the synovitis as in a large joint. There is nothing in my experience in non-infected conditions that will give such relief in deeplyseated affections as the application of the static sparks applied directly to the inflammatory area.

Dr. Sinclair Tousey, New York City: In the treatment of these painful conditions, if the high-frequency currents are used from the ordinary glass electrodes the supposition is that one is going to use a fairly strong current. This is right and very effective, but there is an accident which is possible in such cases. A doctor reported such a case to me only yesterday in his own practice: A patient had had a belladonna plaster on, and he found that the application of high-frequency currents which had been made with the same strength and same duration as he had used in numerous other cases pro

duced a severe burn. Whether it was due to cataphoresis I do not know, but it seems more likely to me that the skin had been rendered tender by the counter-irritating effect of the plaster and that therefore the burn had occurred; so that, in cases that have been painted with the tincture of iodine or where some irritant plaster has been applied, I think the highfrequency current ought to be used with caution. I had an interesting case apropos of that in my own practice: A man with a typical arthritis of the sacro-iliac aponeurosis. He was very fond of shooting and was considered one of the best shots in the country, but with a weak joint right about the middle of him it has been a very great trial to hold a heavy rifle steady. On examination I found two rectangular scars just as if a redhot iron had been put upon the skin to brand him. I applied the high-frequency currents in this spot and the results were most gratifying. There was relief of pain with the first application and the condition was cured inside a month.

Dr. J. D. Gibson, Denver: When we get these cases very acute, painful, and with fever, the thing we need there is heat, the super-dry hot air, and I hope the new incandescent lamps will take the place of a good deal of this apparatus. Electricity will not give the result that we get with heat. Some cases of lame backs of long standing we are able to relieve with static electricity. There are some that we do not relieve. I remember one case especially which I thought I was going to relieve with the static application, but after a week there. was no improvement. I concluded that the trouble was so deep-seated in the muscles of the back that the ordinary applications of electricity did not reach the condition. I tried galvanism, putting the electrodes at the nape of the neck and over the lumbo-sacral region, giving him from 50 to 60 ma. The man had not done any work for years and had been told that he had tuberculosis of the spine, but galvanism relieved him at once. Whether we can get the static sparks in far enough to reach these conditions, I would like to know. These cases of ilio-sacral luxations,—and I believe we have the same luxations in the spinal column farther up-have been Jonahs to me.

Dr. Brockbank (closes): In regard to Dr. Frauenthal's remarks, I would say that the subject of my paper does not limit me to lumbago, and therefore my insistence upon a careful observation of the back and the most particular examination of the spinous processes posteriorly concerning their proper alignment, etc. I feel certain that many of the painful conditions we find in the back are due to these partial luxations, and it seems a shame to me that we have to acknowledge that we have been stirred up to the point of hunting these things up by our friends, the osteopaths. I am often asked by patients and physicians, what I think of osteopathy. Gentlemen, I think well of it, if it is properly applied by the right people.

In all these conditions there is a source of irritation, and we all know that the first effect on a part when subjected to irritation is to increase its physiological function. If as a result of this the muscles on one side have become contracted and the corresponding muscles have not partaken of this increased activity there will be a luxation as the result of muscular action, not as the osteopaths would say, the disease is due to the luxation.

It makes no difference what the osteopath thinks of us or we think of the osteopath; we meet conditions just as they are in every-day practice, and if we are not going to use a modality that will do good, we are not the men to practice progressive medicine. It makes no difference to me from what source a good thing comes, I try to store it away in my memory and use it when I have a chance. I have had cases where a luxation was definitely marked, not only in the spinal column but in the heads of the ribs so much so that under treatment you could feel and hear the head of the rib slip back into position. Until we relieve such a position we will not cure the patient. If the head of the rib is partly dislocated there is pain and no matter how much you do, if you do not do the thing which will relieve the muscle tension and relieve that sub-luxed bone, you will not have good results. The same condition is often found in the sacro-iliac joint which often causes pain along the sciatic nerve. I have in mind a case of sciatic neuritis; a dentist had suffered for years and was often incapacitated for work. He came to me with the limb flexed and using it as little as possible. Upon examination I found decided tenderness over the notch and all the way down the trunk of the nerve. He obtained relief from the two modalities, vibration and the static spark. Some patients you cannot prevail upon to take the spark sufficiently heavy to do them any good. This patient had been taking for weeks 12 grains of codein in twenty-four hours. I had him under treatment for five or six weeks, and so far as I know there has been no return of the trouble.

I believe the time is coming when no man can be a successful practitioner and be only an electro-therapeutist. I believe that a man is obliged, if conscientious, to do that which is best for his patient, regardless of what the method is or where it comes from. I have not a series of cases to-day of which I could say any one particular modality cured them. While I practice electro-therapy, every day I am using physical measures for the relief of diseased conditions. There are a number of such measures, any one of which will give good results.

RADIANT HIGH-FREQUENCY ELECTRIC LIGHT BATH CABINET.

BY H. H. ROBERTS, M. D., LEXINGTON, KY.

The constant increase in the use of chemical light for therapeutic measures has led me to devise a cabinet for the use of chemical light in conjunction with the high-frequency currents; especial attention being given to the therapeutic effect of the

blue, violet, and indigo rays. In the treatment of several hundred patients I have found this cabinet to give the most gratifying results, especially in the treatment of all forms of rheumatism, neurasthenia, nervous disorders of all kinds, espe