Electro-puncture.

Electro-puncture, or Galvano-puncture, is the introduction of acupuncture needles in the usual manner: connecting one or more of them with the poles of a voltaic battery, a succession of shocks may be given by the frequent suspension and restoration of the connection; or they may be made to form a part of the circle in the passage of the electric current.

This practice has been adopted in many instances with great success, in rheumatism, neuralgia, local paralysis, sciatica, spasmodic affections, etc. Electro-puncture has been employed in cases of asphyxia, and it has been proposed to pass the needles on each side between the eighth and ninth ribs into the diaphragm, and establish an electric current; and M Bourgeois went so far as to propose the electro-puncture of the heart in order to accomplish resuscitation in asphyxia. Electro-puncture acts powerfully as a special or local excitant, and also revellent.

Its local derivation and excitant action point to it as a remedy of primary importance in chronic rheumatism, neuralgia, paralysis from torpor of the nerves, morbus coxarius, sciatica, and affections of the spinal cord.

The American Eclectic Materia Medica and Therapeutics, 1898, was written by John M. Scudder, M.D.