1. Medicinal doses of the bromides produce in healthy persons a general diminution of nervous energy. They act as a sedative, and thus dispose to repose and sleep. If they are excessive in quantity and long continued, especially in those susceptible to their action, a series of toxic effects are produced. Various organs and functions of the body are influenced, and the results of the poison may be briefly summed up as follows:--The intellectual faculties are blunted, the memory is impaired, the ideas confused, the patient is dull, stupid, and apathetic, and has a constant tendency to somnolence. The speech is impeded and slow, and the tongue is tremulous. The special senses are weakened. The body, as a whole, is infirm, the limbs feeble, and the gait staggering and incoördinated. The reflex excitability is lowered and the sensibility diminished. The sexual powers are impaired or abolished. These symptoms may be present in a variety of degrees, and in advanced cases even imbecility or paralysis may ensue. The mucous membranes become dry and insensitive, especially those of the fauces. This is attended with various functional disorders, such as nausea, flatulence, gastric catarrh, diarrhoea, &c. The skin is pale, and the extremities are cold. The action of the heart is slow and weak. The respiration is shallow, hurried, and imperfect. The integument is frequently covered with an acne-like eruption. To these symptoms may be added a general cachexia. All these abnormal conditions, as a rule, disappear when the consumption of the poison is arrested.
2. Although some persons, suffering from epileptic seizures, are, in the intervals, of sound mind and body, in many the inter-paroxysmal state is characterized by certain symptoms peculiar to this condition, and independent of any form of treatment. These vary from the slightest departures from health to the most serious mental and physical disease. The general health is frequently unsatisfactory; the functions of the body being impaired in vigour, the digestion is weak, and the circulation feeble. The entire nervous system is in an unstable condition, the patient being at one time irritable and excitable, and at another depressed and despondent. There is a very common condition of so-called "nervousness" which is accompanied by headache, pains, tremors, and a variety of other subjective phenomena. The mental powers are enfeebled, the memory defective, and these intellectual alterations may exist in any degree, even to permanent and intractable forms of insanity. The physical conditions may also be changed, the nutrition of the tissues is often imperfect, the skin is pale, the muscles flabby, and the motor powers generally enfeebled, all of which may also present different degrees of severity, so as to culminate in actual paralysis.