The particular nerve in which the neuralgia is seated does not so decidedly influence the prognosis, according to my experience, as is stated by some authors; nevertheless, there are differences of this kind. For instance, sciatica, though by no means so frequently a mild and trifling complaint as Eulenburg would make it to be, is certainly, on the whole, more curable than the trigeminal neuralgias taken as a group. I, however, cannot share Eulenburg's opinion as to the rarity of a central cause for sciatica, nor his consequent explanation of its more frequent curability; the latter I explain by the fact that it is possible far more completely to remove the concomitant causes in sciatica than in trigeminal neuralgia. By simply keeping a sciatic patient in the prone posture, shielded from cold and from pressure on the nerve, we have it in our power to remove nearly all peripheral sources of irritation; but in trigeminal neuralgia there are many influences, particularly psychical ones, which cannot be shut out, and which will continue to act with disastrous effect in many cases. With all this, however, we see a sufficiently large number of incurable sciaticas, on the one hand, and of severe trigeminal neuralgia cured on the other. It is only the genuine epileptiform tic, occurring in subjects whose arterial system is an advanced stage of degeneration, that stands out clearly and unmistakably pre-eminent among neuralgias for rebelliousness to treatment of every kind. FOOTNOTES: [32] _Op. cit._, pp. 65, 66. [33] Idem, p. 8. [34] "Elektrotherapie." Wien, 1868. CHAPTER V. TREATMENT OF NEURALGIA.