Epilepsy, Hysteria, and Neurasthenia | Page 6

appropriate treatment. To give "patent" medicines for "fits", to a man
who may be suffering from lead poisoning or heart disease, is criminal.
Convulsions in Children often occur before or after some other ailment.
Such children need careful training, but less than 10 per cent of
children who have convulsions become epileptic. Epilepsy should only
be suspected if the first attack occurs in a previously healthy child of
over two years of age. There are many possible causes for infantile
convulsions, and but one treatment; call in a doctor at once, and, while
waiting for him, put the child in a warm bath (not over 100° F.) in a
quiet, darkened room, and hold a sponge wrung out of hot water to the
throat at intervals of five minutes. Never give "soothing syrups" or
"teething powders".
The "soothing" portion of such preparations is some essential oil, like
aniseed, caraway or dill, and there are often present strong drugs
unsuitable for children. According to the analyses made by the British
Medical Association, the following are the essential ingredients of
some well-known preparations for children:

Mrs. Winslow's Soothing Potassium Bromide, Syrup. Aniseed, and
Syrup (sugar and water).
Woodward's Gripe Sodium Bicarbonate, Water. Caraway, and Syrup.
Atkinson and Barker's Pot. and Magnesium Royal Infant Bicarbonate,
several Preservative. Oils, and Syrup.
Mrs. Johnson's American Spirits of Salt, Common Soothing Syrup. Salt,
and Honey.
Convulsions During Pregnancy. Send for a doctor instantly.
Feigned Epilepsy is an all-too-common "ailment". The false fit, as a
rule, is very much overdone. The face is red from exertion instead of
livid from heart and lung embarrassment, the spasms are too vigorous
but not jerky enough, the skin is hot and dry instead of hot and clammy,
the hands may be clenched, but the thumb will be outside instead of
inside the palm, foam comes in volumes but is unmixed with blood,
and the whole thing is kept up far too long. Almost before a crowd can
gather an epileptic seizure is over, whereas the sham sufferer does not
begin seriously to exhibit his questionable talents until a crowd has
appeared.
Pressure on the eye, which will blink while the "sufferer" will swear;
bending back the thumb and pressing in the end of the nail, when the
hand will be withdrawn in feigned but not in true epilepsy; blowing
snuff up the nose, which induces sneezing in the sham fit alone, or
using a cold douche will all expose the miserable trick.
It is, unfortunately, far easier to suggest than to apply these tests, for
anyone foolish enough to try experiments within reach of the
wildly-waving arms will probably get such a buffet as will damp his
ardour for amateur diagnosis for some time.
* * * * *

CHAPTER III
GENERAL REMARKS
"Do not muse at me, my most worthy friends; I have a strange infirmity,
which is nothing To those that know me." "Macbeth," Act III.
Starr's table shows that combinations of all types of epilepsy are
possible, and that mental epilepsy is rare:
Grand mal 1150 Grand and petit mal 589 Petit mal 179 Jacksonian 37
Mental 16 Grand mal and Jacksonian 10 Grand mal, petit mal and
Jacksonian 8 Grand mal and mental 3 Grand mal, petit mal and mental
6 Petit mal and mental 2 Fits by day only 660 Fits day and night 880
Fits by night only 380
The majority of victims have attacks both by day and by night. Of
115,000 seizures tabulated by Clark, 55,000 occurred during the day (6
a.m. to 6 p.m.) and 60,000 by night.
The usual course of a case of epilepsy is somewhat as follows: the
disease begins in childhood, the first convulsion, about the age of three,
being followed some twelve months later by a second, and this again
by a third within a few months. Then attacks occur more frequently
until a regular periodicity--from one a day to one a year--is reached
after about five years, and this frequently persists throughout life.
The effect of epilepsy on the general health is not serious, but it has a
more serious effect on the mind, for epileptic children cannot go to
school (though special schools are now doing something towards
removing this serious disability), and grow up with an imperfect mental
training. They become moody, fretful, ill-tempered, unmanageable, and
at puberty fall victims to self-abuse, which helps to lead to neurasthenia.
Then they may drift slowly into a state of mental weakness, and often
require as much care as imbeciles. If the fits are severe from an early
age, arrest of mental development and imbecility follow. If the disease
be very mild in character, and especially if it be petit mal, the victim
may be very precocious, get "pushed" at school, and later become

eccentric or insane.
Adult victims