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young fubjects of a good habit and a recent dropfy, may afford fome hopes..

CURE. The cure is twofold, the one to prevent it in the infants of fome families, which are very fubject to this diforder. And the other to remove or diminish the evil when prefent. In both these intentions the following remedies may be employed; let the patient be purged with fome cathartic fyrup, to which add according to the infant's age an infufion of fenna, or tincture of rhubarb. If the infant be very young, let the cathartic be exhibited in his pap. Let him afterwards take fome diuretic, aperitive decoction, as decoction of china or farfaparilla, rhubarb-water, infufion of rusty iron-nails, flowers of mars, æthiops mineral, powder of millepedes or vipers; four grains of any of the powders maybe added to his flummery or other aliments. These are to be continued or intermitted according to the intensity of the diforder. If the patient's age can bear it, you may order him factitious cinnabar, instead of æthiops mineral, for it is much active and void of danger. If the infant be three or four years old, prefcribe powder of jalap, cornachin's powder, or diagrydium,

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and the following fimples to make a decoction, being more diuretic than the former, viz. candy-carrot, roots of reft-barrow, and ftellated carduus, to which add arcanum duplicatum, or mineral chryftal; but the former heats and incommodes the breast more than the later. These are the internal remedies.

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The external or topical remedies are chiefly employed, when the diforder is external, and more particularly, when it is under the fkin; of this kind are 1. Cataplafms of contufed fnails, included betwixt two linen cloths. Several authors mightily extol these remedies. Some boil them in a decoction of the last named plants. They are to be renewed before they dry, left they adhere too ftrongly to the patient's head, especially if they immediately touch the skin. The emplaftrum diabotanicum, is more commonly employed, and with almoft the fame fuccefs in this cafe; but with the above precaution in the application. 2. Some authors recommend a vulnerary water, mixed with lime-water, with which the patient's head is to be fomented by a spunge, and afterwards applying a piece of linen or brown paper,

dipped in the fame mixture to the affected part, which may be alfo embrocated twice a day, with oil of chamomile, covering it at the fame time with a brown paper.

FINALLY, if all these methods fail, the operation of the puncture fhould be performed in the most depending part of the tumour. This method will not certainly fail of fuccefs in the cutaneous dropfy of the head, and perhaps it may fucceed, when the water lies betwixt the pericranium and cranium, efpecially if the evil be recent but it is entirely useless in the internal dropfies of the head: yet if you intend to preferve the infant's life a little longer, and if the waters are fuperficial, or betwixt the dura mater and cranium, you may attempt the puncture, nor will the bones of the head make any great refiftance in this cafe; for they are extremely foft and thin. In the operation you are to avoid the futures, particularly the longitudinal one, and the perforation may be made near the futura fagittalis; but the waters are to be evacuated gradually, not all at once, for fear of a fudden collap fion of the brain, which may speedily take away the patient's life.

CHAP.

CHA P. XVI.

Of the EPILEPSY, CONVULSIONS, and CONVULSIVE MOTIONS of CHIL

DREN.

WITH thefe diforders, which differ only in degree, I fhall put an end to the difeafes of the head. Though they are incident as well to adults as children; yet they deferve a place among the diseases of the latter, seeing they are more frequently obferved in children, than in adults, This induces fome writers to call the epilepfy morbus puerilis.

The epilepfy has three effential characterifticks. 1. The lofs of all fenfation and perception in part or intirely, which gives rife to two fpecies of this diforder, viz. perfect and imperfect. 2. Convulfive motions of various parts during the paroxyfm, especially those of the head, as diftortion of the mouth, gnashing of the teeth, protrufion of the tongue, rolling of the eyes, fudden whirling round, ftanding erect and rigid, or

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falling down, accordingly as the muscles are contracted, inflammation and twistings of the intestines, interrupted refpiration, and fometimes a convulfive erection of the penis, particularly in adults, with an involuntary emiffion of the semen, urine, and exSome beat their breafts and tear their hair violently, while others stretch out their legs and arms with great force. 3. More or less frothing of the mouth, towards the end of the fit, which fometimes begins a-new; it is almost imperceptible in fome, but very manifeft in habitual inveterate epilepfies. The tongue being frequently taken betwixt the teeth, alfo makes the froth bloody.

The infant inftead of an epilepfy may have only fimple convulfions. These confist in a tonick, rigid, and uninterrupted contraction of fome parts of the body, as the extremities, neck, and back, which either immediately become rigid,or are twisted here and there with various contorfions. The convulfive motions differ from these laft by their smaller intenfity, being milder, and returning at certain intervals, or feizing the patient only now and then,

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