The history of the changing methods in the treatment of epilepsy, particularly to prevent the characteristic seizures, would fill a large volume. Medicinal aids, as a recent writer1 has pointed out, have included drugs that are of benefit in the general hygiene of the patient, such as cathartics and tonics; those that are intended to combat certain specific diseases whose amelioration is associated with improvement of the epileptic manifestations, as syphilis and malaria; and sedatives, whose purpose is to diminish the frequency and severity of the attacks or to arrest them. Surgery has proved disappointing except in a few instances. Hygiene and diet are generally considered as by far the most important factors in the general treatment.
Within the past few years, however, a number of highly specialized dietary procedures have gained unexpected prominence and apparently met with heretofore unmatched success. The first of these, primarily champoined by Geyelin,