ECLAMPSIA INFASTUM. 407 



its predisposition to acute irritation is greatest. Newly-born infantSj 

 and those who are but a few months old, are the most frequent suffer- 

 ers from eclampsia. The disease is rare after the first dentition, and 

 still more rare after the second. The tendency to eclampsia is often 

 congenital, all the children of a family sometimes being afflicted in 

 this way. We do not know what the diseases or constitutional defects 

 are, on the part of the parents, which determine this predisposition in 

 their children. It occurs in vigorous, full-blooded children, as well as 

 in the puny and anaemic, and in boys quite as often as in girls, perhaps 

 oftener. Besides the exciting cause of the disease already mentioned, 

 the practice of allowing the child to nurse immediately after the 

 mother has been extremely angry, is believed to be a frequent cause 

 of eclampsia. Inexplicable as such an idea may be, it would be 

 neither judicious nor ri ^h* to slight it, and to oppose the appropriate 

 precautionary measures, which consist in not letting the child have the 

 breast immediately after the mother has been angry, until after the 

 breast has been drawn. 



SYMPTOMS AND COURSE. The only form of the disease which is 

 apt to set in suddenly and without warning is that which, during child- 

 hood, often substitutes the chill of older persons as a precursory symp- 

 tom of the acute exanthemata in pneumonia, and in other inflammatory 

 disorders. For a day or two the child is restless during sleep, and 

 sleeps with its eyes partly open, contorting its face and grating its 

 teeth from time to time, and starting when touched. Even while 

 awake, a difference in its manner is observable. The child is cross, 

 does not seem to enjoy its play, cries a great deal, and often changes 

 color. The character of an eclamptic fit is precisely like that of an 

 epileptic one. Here, too, at first, there are usually tonic convulsions, 

 which last for some moments ; the head is thrown back, the extremi- 

 ties extended, the eyes turned up, and the respiratory movements 

 arrested. Then, clonic spasms begin, which extend over the muscles 

 of the face, head, trunk, and extremities, throwing the entire body (or, 

 what is more rare, one side of it alone) into convulsive motion. The 

 spasms equal the epileptic convulsions in violence. The face is red- 

 dened and slightly cyanotic ; frothy saliva appears upon the lips ; the 

 skin is bathed in sweat ; the belly is inflated from air which has been 

 swallowed; the respiration is much embarrassed, and the pulse is 

 small and frequent. At the same time, consciousness is entirely sus- 

 pended, and with it all sensation, even of the most powerful stimulus, 

 is extinguished. A fit of this kind, however, rarely passes off as soon 

 as an epileptic fit, but often lasts from a quarter to half an hour, or 

 even longer. In private practice, the physician far more frequently has 

 opportunity to see eclamptic fits than epileptic ones, as the former 

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