21 0

QUELLEN ZUR GESCHICHTE DER EPILEPSIE by H. HEINTEL Hubers Klassiker der Medizin und der Naturwissenschaften, Band XIV. 152 pp., Hans Huber Verlag, Bern 1975. DM 36,00.

For centuries long, no disease has so much intrigued the medical profession and so often bewildered the fantasies of laymen as epilepsy. This sickness has been mentioned more in earlier medical writings than has been the case with other disorders. Thus this book is a valuable chronological collection in German of some of these original descriptions. Each presentation contains a short introduction by the editor. Beginning with the Codex Hammurabi of about 1,700 B.C. and ending with the description of reading epilepsy (1956) by Bickford and co-workers, it contains a total of 37 stepping-stones in the history of epilepsy. Interesting contributions are, among others, W. West's description (1841) of Salaam spasm, Th. Herpin's publication (1867) on myoclonus epilepsy, and A. Kozevnikov's notes (1894) on epilepsia partialis continua. The minutes of the first meeting of the International League against Epilepsy of August 29, 1919, honour the role of Dutch neurologist Louis Muskens as co-founder, along with J. Donath, of the League.

For research into the history of epilepsy, one must still, however, refer to the classic text, O. Temkin's The Falling Sickness. Nevertheless, this collection of original papers, with an extensive list of bibliographic notes and a registry of subjects and names, is excellent additional reading for those who prepare publi- cations or papers in the field of epilepsy.

B.P.M. Schulte

THE PRIMARY GENERALIZED EPILEPSY WITH SPORADIC MYOCLONIAS OF MYOCLONIC PETIT MAL TYPE. TOPICS IN HUMAN GENETICS by t . TSUBOI

116 pp., 67 figs., 54 tables. Georg Thieme Verlag, Stuttgart 1977. ISBN 3 13 2247 01 4. DM 59,00.

The author Takayuki Tsuboi studied 399 patients with myoclonic jerks found among the in- and out- patients at the Department of Neurology, University of Heidelberg.

The main purpose of the study was to clarify the genetic background of epilepsy, e~pecially the primary generalized epilepsy with sporadic myoclonias. He calls this type of epilepsy the myoclonic petit mal type following Lennox (1945) and Penfield and Jaspers (1954) instead of the term, suggested by the inter- national classification committee: 'bilateral massive myoclonic epilepsy'. It is defined as involuntary, suddenly occurring myoclonic jerks through the shoulders into the arms or legs like an electric current. The seizure usually takes place after awakening and is easily provoked after loss of sleep or consumption of alcohol.

The patients are usually fully conscious. The peak appearance of the seizure is in the age- range between 12-19 years. The sex distribution in the Heidelberg series was 49% male and 51% female. Twentythree percents of the patients showed characteristics EEG abnormalities of diffuse bilateral poly spikes or poly spikes- and-wave complexes at the first examination and 38% of the patients in the repeated examinations at least once.

The incidence of probands with family history for epilepsy was 27.3% which was statistically significantly higher than that in the group of 466 non-selected epileptic patients at the same clinic at the same time being 9.9%.

The presence ofexogenous factors was confirmed only in 1 I% of the patients. Only a small proportion of the patients presented neurological signs or intellectual impairments. The study contains a lot of infor- mation about all sorts of aspects (age, and sex distribution, seizure frequencies, time of occurence of jerks and the correlations between the myoclonic epilepsy and other forms of epilepsy, the form of abnormal- ities in the recorded EEG's. the clinical symptoms, etc.). It is not easy to gather all the information and to understand the correlations which have been made. The way the author presents the enormous number of parameters he looked for resulted in a booklet which is difficult to understand and to read.

H.A.C. Kamphuisen.