CONVULSIONS. 



are time-honoured remedies, and their vsiluo is too well known to need any 

 encomiums from us. A tea-spoonful of castor-oil is a good simple remedy. It 

 now and then happens that children have unusually sluggish bowels, which refuse to 

 respond to any of the ordinary purgatives. A systematic friction of the abdomen 

 in a circular direction from right to left (following the direction of the large intestine) 

 will often suffice to give tone to the bowel, and restore a healthy action. It is a good 

 plan to use a little cod liver oil as a lubricating medium, and to rub the abdomen the 

 last thing at night. A tea-spoonful of ordinary salad oil the first thing in the 

 morning also helps to encourage a proper action. We have heard of cases in which 

 this treatment succeeded after everything else had failed. It has the merit of sim- 

 plicity, and is not likely to do any harm. On this ground alone it is a method of 

 treatment to be strongly recommended. If stronger remedies become necessary, or 

 if a child is more than two days without having its bowels relieved, in spite of 

 medicine, a doctor should be sent for. 



Convulsions are very common in children, and few mothers of large families have 

 been without some experience of fits. It is not too much to say that no health)/ 

 child lias Jits ; but on the other hand, a very slight cause indeed is sufficient to bring 

 on an attack of convulsions in young children. Fits seem, it is said, to take the 

 place of delirium in older persons, and a very eminent authority on children's 

 diseases has remarked that some children are convulsed as easily as some people 

 dream. Dreaming, however, is not always a healthy condition even in grown-up 

 people ; and if dreaming in an adult sometimes calls for medical treatment, how much 

 more is a young child who is subject to fits in need of careful supervision ! 



When a child is taken in a fit it becomes insensible, and often gives a little cry 

 at the moment of seizure. The face is pale or dusky, and there intervene twitchings 

 of the body and limbs. The face is " drawn " or distorted by contraction of the 

 facial muscles ; there is squinting of the eyes, and the mouth is drawn to one side, 

 while frothy fluid escapes from the mouth. The legs and arms are the seat of 

 twitchings, and the thumbs are tightly bent over the palms of the hands. When a 

 child is taken with fits, those about it should endeavour to take notice of certain 

 facts which may assist the medical man on his arrival to come to a proper conclusion 

 as to the cause of the trouble. Does it cry out and bite its tongue 1 How do the 

 tits begin in the arm, or hand, or leg, or how? How often do the fits recur'? 

 Are the twitchings of the body limited in extent, and do they alfect one side more 

 than the other 1 As the medical man is not generally on the spot to observe all 

 these points for himself, he is obliged to trust to the accounts given him by others. 



The individual fits do not last long, but they may succeed each other with such 

 rapidity that it is not possible to say where one fit ends and the next begins. A 

 child does not often die in a fit, but this accident does occasionally happen. When 

 death lakes place in a tit. it is brought about by suffocation. Children occasionally 

 also die of exhaustion if the fits have been prolonged. 



When a child has fits, the fact may be taken to indicate with certainty one or both 

 of two things (1) That the child is of a weak constitution, and (2) that there is some 

 source of irritation in the child's body which is setting up the convulsions. As to 



