Fainting, or Syncope, as it is professionally called, very often attacks the individual without warning, though at other times, and in those subject to these distressing symptoms, fainting is preceded by well-defined sensations, such as a feeling of distress, languor, and sickness; the sight becomes dim, and the eyes appear covered by a film; an areola or dark circle appears round the orbits; a buzzing, or low singing noise, is heard in the ears; the face and lips are pale, a cold perspiration breaks out over the skin; the pulse sinks to a mere flutter, and finally ceases; the body totters, and unless upheld, falls to the ground. The loss of consciousness is sometimes complete; at others, the patient retains a partial amount of recollection; the pallor, too, is occasionally more intense, and corpse-like, the eyes shut, mouth open, the limbs flaccid, and the extremities deadly cold. This state lasts from five minutes to half an hour; a spasm of the chest and a few gasping sobs, each more prolonged than the last, are the first signs of returning consciousness. When the fit is prolonged, it may terminate in epilepsy or convulsions. The causes that predispose to faintings, are an intensely nervous state of the system, a delicate constitution, and extreme debility from whatever cause produced, or a diseased state of the heart. Youth is more subject than age to fainting, and females are more frequently affected by it than males. _Treatment._—When fainting is the result of nervous sensibility, or when it occurs in hysterical women, there is seldom any danger; all that is generally necessary is to lay the patient on her back in the horizontal position; loosen any string that may compress the chest or neck, open the window, dash water in the face, and apply volatile salts to the nostrils, and give a draught with half a tea-spoonful of spirits of lavender, or thirty drops of sal volatile, and twenty of ether, added to the lavender and water, where the fainting threatens to merge into hysteria. Should the case be obstinate, heated bricks or mustard plasters must be applied to the feet or thighs. Where the fainting proceeds from organic disease, the treatment must be guided by the nature of the primary affection. AFFECTIONS OF THE FACE.