THE RELIABILITY OF THE ELECTRICAL DIAGNOSIS OF TETANY

Abstract

The first electrical diagnoses of tetany in children were made on well marked clinical cases. The electrical values obtained in these were much lower than those found in children free from tetany. It was later discovered that some children who showed no clinical evidences of tetany gave electrical values nearly if not quite so low as those found in cases of clinical tetany. Such children were said to suffer from latent tetany, the diagnosis being based wholly on the electrical reactions.¹ With this extension of the conception of tetany as an active and as a latent disease of infancy and childhood, the diagnosis of it has, especially with older children, come to rest on a less secure foundation. There have been no electrical standards established for normal children beyond the period of infancy, it having apparently been assumed that the values established for infants are applicable to older children