High-Frequency Currents for Constipation.

Fleig and Frenkel during the course of treating hemorrhoids, fissures, and anal fistula with high-frequency currents, have discovered that constipation is cured quickly and harmlessly by the same method. They treated twenty cases of constipation in this way, with amelioration in every case.

The application was made with a unipolar connexion, no volts, the electrode being either cylindrical or conical, according to the tolerance of the patient. The intensity of the current was gradually increased and diminished during each sitting, lasting from five to eighteen minutes, and varying in number from eight to fifteen.

In three cases of muco-membranous colitis the current was applied by means of one electrode on the abdomen and the other in the rectum, with the result that two cases were completely cured and the third very materially improved, the number of sittings being respectively eight, sixteen, and twenty.

The great advantages of the treatment appear to be the rapid improvement of the general condition, and the absence of any sensation of pain during the sittings.—British Med. Jour.

Ellingwood's Therapeutist, Vol. 2, 1908, was edited by Finley Ellingwood M.D.