EPILEPSY.
Of the Epilepsv, or Falling Sickness.
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The epilepsy is a sudden deprivation of all the senses whereinthe patient falls suddenly down, and is affected with violent con-vulsive motions. Children, especially those who are delicatelybrought up, are most subject to it. It more frequently attacks menthan women, and is very difficult to cure. When the epilepsy at-tacks children, there is reason to hope it may go off about the timeof puberty. When it attacks any person after twenty years ofage, the cure is difficult; but when after forty, a cure is hardly tobe expected. If the fit continues only for a short space, and re-turns seldom, there is reason to hope ; but if it continues long, andreturns frequently, the prospect is bad. It is a very unfavourablesymptom when the patient is seized with the fits in his sleep.
The returns of epilepsy are periodical, and its paroxysms com-mence more frequently in the night than in the day, being some-what connected with sleep. It is one of those^diseases that is fre-quently counterfeited by impostors to excite charity. It is occa-sionally combined with mania: and is properly distinguished intosympathie and idiopathic ; being considered as sympathie whenurising as an affection of some other parts of the body, as acidityin the stomach, worms, teething, &c. and idiopathic, when it is aprimary disease,* neither dependent on, nor proceeding from anyother.
Causes. — The epilepsy is sometimes hereditary. *It may like-wise proceed from Wows, bruises, or wounds on ( the head ; a col-lection of water, Wood, or serous humours in the brain; a poly-pus ; tumours or concretions within the skull ; excessive drinking ;intense study; excess of venery ; worms; teething; suppressionof customary evacuations ; too great emptiness or repletion ; vio-lent passions or affections of the mind, as fear, joy, ice. ; hystericaffections ; contagion received into the body, as the infection ofthe small-pox, measles, «fee.
Symptoms. — An epileptic fit is generally preceded by unusualweariness ; pain of the head, dullness, giddiness, noise in the ears,dimness of the sight, palpitation of the heart, disturbed sleep, diffi-cult breathing, the bowels are inflated with wind, the urine is ingreat quantity, but thin ; the complexion is pale, the extremitiesare cold, and the patient often feels, as it were, a stream of coldair ascending towards his head.
In the fit, the patient generally makes an unusual noise ; histhumbs are drawn in towards the palms of his hands, his eyes aredistorted, he starts, and foams at the mouth, his extremities arebent or twisted various ways, he often discharges his seed, urine,and fœces involuntary, and is quite destitute of all sense and rea-son. After the fit is over, his senses gradually return, and he com-plains of a kind of stupor, weariness, and pain of his head; buthas no remembrance of what happened to him during the fit.
* We are informed by Dr. Parry, in hie Elements of Pathology and Therapeutics,that whatever may be the primary cause of epilepsy, it usually depends immediatelyon excessive impetus of blood ¡n the vessels of the brain. Eb.