£*•

INFLAMMATION AND BRAIN DISEASES. 355
Insanity appears often to be a disease of exhaustion,
as it is caused by masturbation. It is also excited by
disappointed love, grief, and various discordances of the
passions. The risk of it, in any case, is greatly in
creased by hereditary predisposition.
Delirium Tremens is a form of insanity, depending
upon an exhausted and irritable condition of the brain.
It is caused by the use of intoxicating drinks, and milder
forms come from the use of tobacco, tea, coffee, and
opium.
All these affections are beautifully managed in watercure—the
treatment being adapted to the condition of
each case. A half-bath, or a wet-sheet pack, is a sover
eign soother of nervous irritability. In severe cases of
mnnia, or delirium tremens, the half-bath should be
used perseveringly, with frequent
head.
cold affusion to the
Apoplexy is a sudden or paralysis, insensibility, stu
por, resembling deep sleep, with full breathing, and
regular pulse, and producing hemiplegia,
or death. It
is caused by pressure on the brain, either distention of
the blood-vessels, effusion of serum, or effusion of blood.
It is a disease of exhaustion, and generally of old age.
Men who have worked with their brains, using stimu
lants, aud eating too much, are most subject to this dis
ease.
The only reasonable treatment is the application of
cold to the head, and warmth to the extremities. This
may relieve and cure, if there is no actual effusion.
When the patient survives the first attack, and is left
with paralysis of one side of the body, a thorough
course of invigorating treatment, with a strict diet, and