Observations on Records of Local Epileptic Convulsions*

Abstract

THE varied phenomena of epilepsy and the many clinical problems with which it is associated present a perennial source of interest to the clinician. The convulsion itself presents many problems which become the more interesting the more closely they are observed, though the rapid sequence and concurrence of a number of manifestations tend to confuse clinical observation. Some of the events lend themselves to analysis by graphic record, and the following account concerns records of cerebrospinal fluid pressure, respiration, and muscular movement in six patients. Though such records fall far short of any exact quantitative measurement of muscular contraction, careful control by clinical observation allows them a measure of accuracy, and in their essential feature, namely sequence of events in time, they appear to us to be reliable evidence.