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CONVULSIONS. FITS. SPASMS

Convulsions are quite common in children, especially those under three
years of age.

A convulsion in an infant immediately, or within three months, after its
birth is the result of injury, either at birth or later (a fall for
example) which seriously affects the brain itself. After the third month
the cause of fits or convulsions is, in a very large percentage of the
cases, to be found in errors of diet resulting in disturbances in the
stomach or bowels--eating of articles of food difficult to digest, as
green or overripe fruit, salads, fresh bread, pickles, cheese, etc.
Children of a nervous temperament are more liable to convulsions than
are others. Females are more frequently victims of fits than are male
children.

In infants convulsions often result from changes in the mother's milk.
Mental excitement, deep emotion, anger, frights, severe affliction and
distress will so affect a woman's milk that it will cause convulsions in
her child if she nurses it while under the influence of any of these
conditions.

Convulsions may result from any condition that disturbs the nutrition of
the child, as, for example,--exhaustion, anemia, intestinal indigestion,
blood poison, and general weakness resulting from some severe sickness,
especially those of the digestive organs.

Various forms of brain disease cause spasms and fits; the most common
are meningitis, tumors, hemorrhage, abscesses and injuries. Convulsions
may accompany certain conditions, as, the presence of worms, teething,
severe burns, foreign bodies in the ear, whooping cough, pneumonia
scarlet fever, malaria, sometimes measles, typhoid fever, and
diphtheria. Children who are badly nourished and who live constantly in
unsanitary surroundings are more apt to have convulsions than those who
are well nourished and who live hygienically. One attack renders the
patient more liable to another, and when the "habit" is established any
trivial cause may incite a convulsion; persistent and systematic efforts
should therefore be taken to prevent the attacks. The best preventives
are:

1st. To regulate the diet and the bowels.

2nd. Remove adenoids and worms, if they exist.

3rd. Avoid the use of alcohol, coffee, tea, fresh bread, pastries,
candies and all improper foods.

4th. Guard the child against catching cold, infectious diseases and all
fevers. In other words, save the child from the cause and the convulsion
will not take