Essays on the theory of convulsive diseases / by Marshall Hall.

  • Hall, Marshall, 1790-1857.
Date:
[1848]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Essays on the theory of convulsive diseases / by Marshall Hall. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    deep as that which takes place at the stiller and darker period of midnight. The patient may be watched, too, and if there be any disposition to stertor, may be gently awakened, or his position may be gently changed, or.he may be fanned, or a little water be placed within his lips. The object is to ward off the attack, both on account of the present evil, to break the habit of periodicity, and to save the cerebral system from the dire influence of violent congestion. The disposition to augmented excitability is to be reme¬ died by free exposure to the open air, with exercise. There is no easier or more royal road to cure. All mental excitement must be avoided: heated rooms, late hours; the opera, the theatres, which combine all the lsedentia in one, must be avoided. The diet must be simple and nutritious, without stimulus; the bowels must be carefully watched and regulated, with the secretion of the kidneys; and the skin must be excited by means of a coarse towel, and sponged with cold or cool water, or salt and water, and again rubbed, night and morning. All these things must be done, and carefully and perse- veringly done, by those who would do everything to remove this great, this Herculean evil. Once more I assert, there is no royal road to health in such a case ; and they who trust to a mere remedy, whether it be foetid as the assafoetida itself, or fragrant as musk, or blue as indigo, or be brought from as far as the Hague, or from the Indies, to the neglect of all the means which can reasonably conduce to recovery and to health, are guilty of the danger to mind, or limb, or life, of the unfortunate patient. If I were to fix on one remedy for epilepsy, it would not be valerian, indigo, or zinc, but judiciously administered ‘ air and exercise.’ But, as I have said, the idea of a remedy for epilepsy is unphysiological; the treatment, and, when this can be effected, the cure, consist in a well-administered plan, embracing every means of good, and avoiding every means of harm, fully and perseveringly. With these views and again I say there is no “ royal ” road to health any more than to geometry—many a case hitherto deemed hopeless is curable. I would, if there were time to spare, detail examples of