RT Journal
T1 THe treatment of epilepsy by excision of the cervical sympathetic.
JF Journal of the American Medical Association
JO Journal of the American Medical Association
YR 1899
FD February 25
VO XXXII
IS 8
SP 435
OP 435
DO 10.1001/jama.1899.02450350041008
UL http://dx.doi.org/10.1001/jama.1899.02450350041008
AB The mystery that surrounds the etiology and pathology of so-called essential epilepsy yet awaits solution. It may tentatively be conceived that the attacks are dependent upon nutritive disturbances in certain parts of the central nervous system, probably the cells of the cerebral cortex, and that these are brought about by the circulation in the blood of noxious substances, between which and the cells there exists a special affinity. Of the stability of such an hypothesis there is yet wanting definite evidence, but from analogy and reasoning, the conception can hardly be considered far-fetched. Some support of this view may be found in the fact that in many, if not all, cases of epilepsy the number and severity of the seizures can often be favorably influenced by attention to the gastro-intestinal tract, maintaining this as far as possible in a condition of relative asepsis. There is no specific treatment. The bromids