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358 ESOTERIC ANTHROPOLOGY.
are the best remedies. The palsied limbs must be
regularly exercised. Much good has been attributed
to electricity or galvanism.
Chorea Sancta Vita, or St. Vitus's Dance, is com
monly a disease of childhood or youth. It is produced,
unquestionably, in nine cases in ten, by solitary amative
indulgence. Sometimes it is attributed to worms, or
other irritations of the digestive organs. It yields read
ily to a strict diet, wet-sheet pack, sitz-baths, the
douche upon the spine, and injections, if the cause is
attended to and removed.
Epilepsy
is one of the most terrible of this class of
diseases. The patient is suddenly, with or without
warning, attacked by violent convulsions, foaming at the
mouth, grinding the teeth, with every appearance of
agony, but no after memory of suffering. The fit lasts
from ten minutes to an hour. Sometimes there are
several in succession. These paroxysms may occur
daily, several times a day, or at intervals of weeks or
months. ♦
Epileptic fits are caused in infants by dentition or
worms ; they sometimes precede or follow eruptive
fevers ; but I have never seen a case of epilepsy that
was not caused by amative excess, and generally by
masturbation.
Parents, friends, and even patients have denied this,
but, upon a full investigation, I have never failed of
tracing it to this prolific source of nervous exhaustion
and disorder. In some cases tobacco, ardent spirits,
and dietetic irregularities have lent their aid.
The treatment is the absolute avoidance of these
causes of disease, an absolutely strict diet, full treat-