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A large proportion of pensioners experience dizzy spells at some time and in general, they may or may not be indicative of an underlying condition of a serious or innocuous nature.
Most dizzy spells are caused by getting up too quickly, pirouetting for extended periods of time or trying to follow BBC3’s 60-second news update.
Dizzy spells can be extremely serious if they occur while you’re driving, base jumping, welding in a confined space or undertaking open heart surgery, but in the vast majority of cases, permanent damage is more likely to be sustained by items of furniture, crockery and worthless ornaments.
According to the 1826 edition of The Home Medicorum, dizzy spells can be prevented by practical measures such as syringing the ears with laudanum or deputing several of your domestic staff to stand in very close proximity; it does, however, reject folk remedies such as filling your shoes with tadpoles, covering your eyes with shallots and setting fire to a pauper during Lent.
In Scotland, dizziness is often known as mirligoes (See Words, Unnecessary)