The etiology of epilepsy has been a subject of comment and investigation from the most ancient times to the present day, yet but little light has been shed on its mysteries. The recognition of the cortical origin of the convulsion, and, more important than this, the new viewpoint being adopted by epileptologists, which regards the convulsion or other paroxysmal manifestation of the disease as the symptom and not as the disease iself—these have been the most important steps in advance.
Out of the recognition of the symptomatic character of the attack has grown the idea that the disease is not a unit—is not due to the same cause confined to the same part of the body in every case. Instead, it may be said that every case is an epilepsy by itself; certain it is that there will be found to be several epilepsies.
In regarding the disease as a