Everything should be done, by training, to increase the patient's self-control, and all stimulants should be avoided as most injurious. _See_ Head, Rubbing the.
It is important that those liable to these attacks should be kept employed. Nothing is so harmful as idleness. Everything tending to good health is of value, but the essentials of the treatment are found in soothing the spine as above, and stimulating the brain by the head rubbing. Unless in cases in which the very structure of the system has been, so to speak, altered by long-continued disease of this sort, we should look for good results from such treatment as this. Even in the worst cases it would be possible to mitigate the severity of the distress.
A difference in the focus of the eyes often causes a strain on the brain in the effort to adjust them. This sometimes causes epilepsy, and we have known many cases cured by the use of spectacles made to correct this inequality. In all cases of this disease, therefore, an optician should be consulted, to see if there is any defect in the eyes.
Other illnesses are sometimes mistaken for epilepsy: for example, the liver and kidneys in a defective state and impurities passing in the blood to the brain, will explain certain forms of that which passes as epilepsy. It is often easy to cure attacks of this nature by merely bringing the liver and kidneys into working order. If there is a yellowness of the skin, or other signs of the blood failing to be purified in a natural way, then that should first be dealt with, and the fits will often be removed as soon as good action is established in the purifying organs. But in all cases in which there is anything like real "fits," it will be found of great importance to study the over-and-under-actions of the nerve system as by far the most essential elements in the disease. _See_ Jaundice.
Eruptions.--_See_ Hives; "Outstrikes;" Saltrome, etc.
Erysipelas.--This troublesome disease is also known as St. Anthony's Fire, or the Rose. The skin becomes fiery red or even purplish in hue. A violent heat and pain in the part accompany this, and fever and general disturbance of the system follow in a severe case. Swelling of the parts follows, with much distress and danger. _Air_ irritates violently the sore parts, and is usually excluded.