A STATISTICAL INQUIRY
INTO
THE NATURE AND TREATMENT
OF
EPILEPSY
BY
A. HUGHES BENNETT, M.D.,
Physician to the Hospital for Epilepsy and Paralysis, andAssistant Physician to the Westminster Hospital.



LONDON
H. K. LEWIS, 136, GOWER STREET, W.C.
1884.
 


These three papers have already appeared in the Medical Journals, atdifferent dates, during the past few years. They are now republishedtogether, so as to form a connected inquiry. Since the production of thefirst and second of them, increased experience has greatly augmented theclinical material which might have been utilised in their investigation:but, as the essential facts have only thus been confirmed, and thegeneral conclusions arrived at have remained the same, it has beenthought best, with the exception of certain verbal alterations, topreserve the text of the articles as they originally appeared.
A. H. B.
38, Queen Anne Street, W.
May, 1884
 
CONTENTS.
  1. —An Inquiry into the Etiology and Symptomatology of Epilepsy.
  2. —An Inquiry into the Action of the Bromides on EpilepticAttacks.
  3. —An Inquiry into the Effects of the ProlongedAdministration of the Bromides in Epilepsy.
 
 
[Pg 5]
I.

AN ENQUIRY

INTO THE

ETIOLOGY AND SYMPTOMATOLOGY

OF EPILEPSY.[A]
The science of medicine is to be advanced by the careful collection ofwell-recorded facts, rather than by general statements or unsupportedassertions. No inquiry thus conducted with scientific precision can failto be without value, and to add a mite to that store of positiveknowledge from which must emanate all hopes of progress for the healingart. Our acquaintance with the nature of epilepsy is as yet in itsinfancy, and although much valuable practical information has been puton record regarding this disease, it is believed that the followingcontribution may not be useless in either confirming or questioningprevious conclusions.
The clinical aspects of epilepsy are especially difficult to investigatewith exactitude. The physician, as a rule, is not himself a witness tothe chief phenomena characteristic of the disease. He is thereforecompelled, in most cases, to trust to the statements of the patient andhis friends for their description, and even when the cross-examinationis conducted with the greatest care, there are many points impossible toascertain with certainty. In the following cases of epilepsy, which havebeen under my own care, those only are included in which loss of[Pg 6]consciousness formed the chief feature of the attack; and in thesucceeding particulars, attention will be specially directed to etiologyand symptomatology.
ETIOLOGY.
This may conveniently be discussed under (1) Predisposing causes, and(2) Exciting causes.
1.—Predisposing Causes....
                        
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