When a fit comes on, the muscles of the face twitch, the body is stiff, immovable, and then in a short time, in a state of twitching motion, the head and neck are drawn backwards and the limbs violently bent and stretched. Sometimes these movements are confined to certain muscles or are limited to one side, and I may add that such cases are of more importance as far as the state of the brain is concerned than those in which the convulsions are general. The eye is fixed and does not see; the fingers may be passed over it without its winking, the pupil is immovably contracted or dilated; the ear is insensible even to loud sounds, the pulse is small, very frequent, often too small, and too frequent even for the skilled doctor to count it; the breathing hurried, laboured and irregular; the skin bathed in abundant perspiration. After this condition has lasted for a minute, or ten minutes, or an hour or more, the convulsions cease; and the child either falls asleep, or lies for a short time as if it were bewildered, or bursts out crying, and then returns to its senses, or sinks into a state of stupor, in which it may either be perfectly motionless, or twitching of some muscles may still continue; or, lastly, it may, though this seldom happens, die in the fit. It seems then, from all that has been said, that convulsions, though one of the most striking, are by no means one of the most conclusive signs of brain disease; that they are even more commonly the result of disorders of the nervous system from causes seated elsewhere, than of actual disease of what may be termed the great nervous centre. We may now therefore pass to the examination of these diseases, which for the purposes of this book may be considered under the two heads of congestion and inflammation. I am forced to use these terms in somewhat of a popular sense, for to attempt in a little book like this to define everything with strict scientific accuracy would simply confuse and mislead.