Convulsions

Convulsions, a term applied to violent involuntary contractions of groups of muscles. In tonic convulsions one set of muscles is affected by contraction for a sensible period, while in clonic convulsions groups of muscles of more or less opposite action are alternately involved by spasmodic contraction, producing, for example, flexion and extension of parts of the limbs in rapid succession to one another. Convulsions may result from organic disease of the brain, and may be associated with the puerperal state. Infantile convulsions. Children are peculiarly liable to convulsive seizures, the onset of acute disease, for example, which is so often attended by a rigor or shivering fit in an adult, may in a child be accompanied by convulsions. Again, during teething and in association with rickets they may occur. In the treatment of "fits" in children it is usual to adopt certain remedies, the most popular of which is the warm bath; it must of course be borne in mind, however, that the fit is, as a rule, merely a symptom of some disease, and the chief point is to make out in the first instance what that disease is.