Book Description

We congratulate Dr. Dawson Turner on the appearance of this edition of his book, which is thoroughly revised and brought up to date. Nearly seventy pages have been added on treatment by Rontgen Rays, by the Finsen lamp, and by ultra-violet light. It is refreshing to find evidences of original work in a book on medical electricity, for only too often these books present a wearisome sameness, and show many signs of being compiled with the aid of scissors and paste. Dr. Dawson Turner's account of his study of the ultra-violet radiations yielded by the different lamps in use at the present time is a good piece of work, which will be of great use to those who are following up the same line of treatment. The condenser spark-lamp with iron terminals appears to hold its ground as the best source of ultra-violet radiations, but it must not be forgotten that we do not yet know whether the rays which act best upon lupus belong to the blue, the violet, or the ultra-violet regions of the spectrum. The author does not touch upon the strange influence of the static brush-discharge upon cutaneous disorders; a line of work which MacIntyre of Glasgow has brought to the notice of the profession, and one which certainly has proved to be useful in lupus, in chronic ulceration, and in some forms of superficial epithelioma. The subject of high-frequency treatment is referred to, and its principles are described, but the complicated technique recently introduced into this mode of treatment is (shall we say, rightly) ignored. High frequency is a form of electrical application which has yet to find its proper position; at present it labours under the disadvantage of having fallen into the hands of unqualified persons, and of being recommended for all sorts of quite unsuitable cases, so that its general influence upon the progress of electro-therapeutics threatens to be a bad one. -The Practitioner, Volume 71 [1903]