DISEASES CLASS III. 1. 1. 5. 



emprosthotonoi; when they bend it backward, they are termed 

 opisfhotonoi. They frequently succeed each other, but the 

 opisthotonoi are generally more violent; as the muscles, which 

 erect the body, and keep it erect, are naturally in more constant 

 and more forcible action than their antagonists. 



The causes of convulsion are very numerous, as from tooth- 

 ing in children, from worms or acidity in their bowels, from 

 eruption of the distinct small-pox, and lastly, from breathing 

 too long the air of an unventilated bed-room. Sir G. Baker, 

 in the Transactions of the College, described this disease, and 

 detected its cause; where many children in an orphan-house 

 were crowded together in one chamber without a chimney, and 

 were almost all of them affected with convulsion; in the hos- 

 pital at Dublin, many died of convulsions before the real cause 

 was understood. See Dr. Beddoes' Guide to Self-preservation. 

 In a large family which I attended, where many female servants 

 slept in one room, which they had contrived to render inacces- 

 sible to every blast of air; I saw four who were thus seized with 

 convulsions, and who were believed to have been affected by 

 sympathy from the first who fell ill. They were removed into 

 more airy apartments, but were some weeks before they all re- 

 gained their perfect health. 



Convulsion is distinguished from epilepsy, as the patient does 

 not entirely lose all perception during the paroxysm. Which 

 only shews, that a less exhaustion of sensorial power renders to- 

 lerable the pains which cause convulsion, than those which cause 

 epilepsy. The hysteric convulsions are distinguished from those 

 owing to other causes, by the preference of the expectation of 

 death, which precedes and succeeds them, and generally by a 

 flow of pale urine; these convulsions do not constantly attend 

 the hysteric disease, but are occasionally superinduced by the 

 disagreeable sensation arising from the torpor or inversion of a 

 part of the alimentary canal. Whence the convulsion of laugh- 

 ter is frequently sufficient to restrain these hysteric pains, which 

 accounts for the fits of laughter frequently attendant on this 

 disease. 



M. M. To remove the peculiar pain which excites the con- 

 vulsions. Venesection. An emetic. A cathartic with calo- 

 mel. Warm-bath. Opium in large quantities, beginning with 

 smaller ones. Mercurial frictions. Electricity. Cold-bath in 

 the paroxysm; or cold aspersion. See Memoirs of Med. Society, 

 Lon. Vol. III. p. 147, a paper by Dr. Currie. 



5. Convulsio debilis. The convulsions of dying animals, as of 

 those which are bleeding to death in the slaughter-house, are an 

 effort to relieve painful sensation, either of the wound which 



