uries to the brain may cause epilepsy, and many cases date from birth, a
difficult labour having caused a minute injury to the brain.

Some accident is often wrongly alleged as the cause of fits, for most
victims come of a bad stock, and when the first fit occurs, their relatives
recollect an injury or a fright in the past, which is said to be the cause.

Great fright may cause epilepsy, as in the case of a nervous girl whose
brother entered her room, covered with a sheet, as a "ghost", a "joke" that
was followed by a fit within an hour.

Sunstroke may cause fits, and a few cases follow infectious diseases.

Alcoholism is a strong secondary factor, fits often occurring during a
drinking-bout and in topers, but in many cases, drunkenness, instead of
being the cause, is only the result of a lack of self-control following
epilepsy.

Pregnancy may be a secondary cause of the malady: it may lead to more
frequent and severe seizures in women who are already victims; bring on a
recurrence of the malady after it has apparently been cured; or, very
rarely, induce a temporary or permanent cure.

Epilepsy may be due to abortives. These drugs wreck the constitution of the
undesired children, who contract epilepsy from causes which would not so
have affected them had they started fairly. In many families, the first
child, who was wanted, is normal; some or all the others, who were not
desired and on whom attempts were probably made to prevent birth, are
neuropaths, as are many illegitimate children. It cannot too emphatically
be stated that there is no drug known which will procure abortion without
putting the woman's life in so grave a danger as to prevent medical men
using it; legal abortion is always procured surgically. Dealing in
abortifacients would be a capital offence under the laws of a rational
community.

Self-abuse may perhaps play some part in epilepsy commencing or recurring
after the age of ten.

The onset of menstruation often coincides with the onset of epilepsy, and
in some cases irregularity of the menses seems to be a secondary or
exciting cause.

Exciting Causes aggravate the trouble when present, causing more frequent
and severe seizures. The chief are irritation of stomach and bowels (from
decaying teeth, unchewed, unsuitable, or indigestible food, constipation,
or diarrhoea), exhaustion, work immediately after a meal, passion or
excitement, fright, worry, mental work, alcoholism, sexual excess, nasal