3. Dutch Retrospect

Abstract

In the “Nederlandsche Tÿdschrift voor Geneeskunde” for February, 1888, there is to be found an article under the above heading (“A Contribution to the Study of the Treatment of Epilepsy”) which is worthy of some consideration, for it discusses a subject which has received but scant notice at the hands of medical men, viz., the influence of electricity on the epileptic state. The success achieved by Dr. Niermeÿer in the treatment of the cases he cites would be a sufficient inducement for attempting by the method he advocates, if not the permanent cure, at least the amelioration of the condition of such patients in private and hospital practice, and before the consequent psychical change had introduced a new element in to the affection; but it would also be opening up a new field of study if a careful trial could be given, and the results published, of the effect of Niermeÿer's process on a series of favourable epileptic cases resident in asylums, the affection in such being independent of organic brain lesion. The practical importance of the subject justifies a quotation of Niermeÿer's contribution in extenso:—