Book 1
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The bladder and the loose portion of the rectum are sometimes paralysed, in regard to their expulsive powers, when the bowels are constantly filled with the excrements, and the bladder is swelled to a great size. But sometimes they are affected as to their retentive powers, for the discharges run away as if from dead parts. In this case one must not boldly use the instrument, the catheter, for there is danger of inducing violent pain of the bladder, and of occasioning a convulsion in the patient. It is better to inject with no great amount of strained ptisan; and if the bowel be evacuated of the fæces, it will be proper to inject castor with oil. But the sole hope, both of general and partial attacks of paralysis, consists in the sitz bath of oil. The manner of it will be described under the chronic diseases.
CHAPTER V. CURE OF THE PAROXYSM OF EPILEPTICS.
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EVEN the first fall in epilepsy is dangerous, if the disease attack in an acute form; for it has sometimes proved fatal in one day. The periodical paroxysms are also dangerous; and, therefore, on these accounts, epilepsy has been described among the acute diseases. But if the patient has become habituated to the illness, and the disease has taken a firm hold of him, it has become not only chronic, but, in certain cases, perpetual; for if it pass the prime of life, it clings to him in old age and in death.
