When something is diseased, it hurts to touch it. So it's best to treat yourself as soon as you notice something is wrong. Give yourself as little freedom as possible to speak rashly, and hold back your impulses. It's easy to catch our emotions when they first start growing — the warning signs come before the real trouble. Just like we can tell storms and rain are coming before they hit, there are signals that come before anger, love, and all the other storms that shake our minds. People with epilepsy know a seizure is coming when their hands and feet get cold, their vision blurs, their muscles shake, they can't remember things, and they feel dizzy. So they fight the growing attack with their usual treatments. They try to stay conscious by smelling or tasting medicine. They battle the cold and stiff limbs with hot compresses. Or if nothing works, they go somewhere private to collapse where no one will see them fall.
That which is diseased can never bear to be handled without complaining: it is best, therefore, to apply remedies to oneself as soon as we feel that anything is wrong, to allow oneself as little licence as possible in speech, and to restrain one’s impetuosity: now it is easy to detect the first growth of our passions: the symptoms precede the disorder. Just as the signs of storms and rain come before the storms themselves, so there are certain forerunners of anger, love, and all the storms which torment our minds. Those who suffer from epilepsy know that the fit is coming on if their extremities become cold, their sight fails, their sinews tremble, their memory deserts them, and their head swims: they accordingly check the growing disorder by applying the usual remedies: they try to prevent the loss of their senses by smelling or tasting some drug; they battle against cold and stiffness of limbs by hot fomentations; or, if all remedies fail, they retire apart, and faint where no one sees them fall.