may at any time fall downstairs and be killed.

Any effort to rouse him will only make the post-epileptic stupor more
severe, but whether he sleeps or not, he must carefully be watched, for
patients in this state are apt to slip away, often half-clothed, and travel
towards nowhere in particular at a wonderfully rapid rate.

If several fits follow one another, or if one is very long or severe, send
for a doctor.

When a seizure occurs in public, a constable should be summoned, who, being
a "St. John" man, will be of far more use than bystanders brimming over
with sympathy--_and ignorance_. If some kindly householder near by will
allow the victim to sleep for an hour or two--a boon usually denied more
from fear of recurrence than lack of sympathy, it is better than taking him
home. If not, let someone call a cab, and deliver the victim safely to his
friends.

Every epileptic should carry always with him a card stating his full name
and address, with a request that some one present at any seizure will
escort him home.

If the victim wakes with a headache, give him a 10-grain Aspirin powder, or
a 5-grain Phenalgin tablet; _never patent "cures"_.

If possible, the patient should lie abed the day after a fit, undisturbed,
taking only soda-and-milk and eggs beaten up in _hot_ milk.

* * * * *

CHAPTER VII

NEURASTHENIA

"Some of your hurts you have cured,
And the worst you still have survived;
But what torments of mind you endured
From evils which never arrived."
--Lowell.

To-day, the need to eat forces even sensible men to live--and die--at a
feverish rate. In bygone days the world was a peaceful place, in which our
forefathers were denied the chance of combining exercise with amusement
dodging murderous taxis; knew not the blessings of "Bile Beans", nor the
biliousness they blessed either; they did not fall victims to
"advert-diseases"; and they left the waters beneath to the fishes, and the
skies above to the birds.

Withal they were sound trenchermen, who called their few ailments "humours"
or "vapours" and knew what peace of mind meant. Sixty years ago there was
one lunatic in every six hundred people; to-day there is one in every two
hundred.

At the same time, the "neurasthenic temperament" is not altogether a modern
product, for Plato described it with great precision, and declared such
people to be "undesirable citizens" for his ideal repu