Epilepsy

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xii

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2. The Classification of Epileptic Seizures and Epileptic Syndromes

   • Roger J. Porter

   Pages 1-11

3. Neonatal Seizures

   • Peter Kellaway, Eli M. Mizrahi

   Pages 13-47

4. Infantile Spasms (West Syndrome)

   • Barbara F. Westmoreland, Manuel R. Gomez

   Pages 49-71

5. Lennox-Gastaut Syndrome

   • Warren T. Blume

   Pages 73-92

6. Febrile Seizures

   • Gerald Erenberg, Harold H. Morris III

   Pages 93-104

7. Absence Seizures

   • Manuel R. Gomez, Barbara F. Westmoreland

   Pages 105-129

8. Juvenile Myoclonic Epilepsy

   • Dudley S. Dinner, Hans Lüders, Harold H. Morris III, Ronald P. Lesser

   Pages 131-149

9. Generalized Tonic-Clonic Epilepsies

   • Bruce J. Fisch, Timothy A. Pedley

   Pages 151-185

10. Progressive Myoclonic Epilepsy

    • Hiroshi Shibasaki

    Pages 187-206

11. Generalized Status Epilepticus

    • A. David Rothner, Harold H. Morris III

    Pages 207-222

12. Simple Partial Seizures

    • Ronald P. Lesser, Hans Lüders, Dudley S. Dinner, Harold H. Morris III

    Pages 223-278

13. Complex Partial Seizures

    • Frank W. Sharbrough

    Pages 279-302

14. Benign Focal Epilepsy of Childhood

    • Hans Lüders, Ronald P. Lesser, Dudley S. Dinner, Harold H. Morris III

    Pages 303-346

15. Focal Status Epilepticus: Modern Concepts

    • Antonio V. Delgado-Escueta, David M. Treiman

    Pages 347-391

16. Back Matter

    Pages 393-399

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Epilepsy is among the most common scourges afflicting the health of humankind and perhaps the most terrifying. In one form or another, it is suffered by one in everyone hundred people on earth, with a disproportionate prevalence at the early and late extremes of life. There is nothing sacred or sanctifying about it in spite of Hippoc­ rates' terming epilepsy "The Sacred Disease" in a famous treatise. There is nothing ennobling about it despite its occasional designa­ tion as a "noble disorder" by virtue of i ts having affected the likes of Alexander of Macedon, Julius Caesar and other persons of royal lineage. From time to time, epilepsy is hailed as a condition which is artistically inspirational; Fyodor Dostoyevsky's dependence on his own personal experience with complex partial epilepsy as a source of imagery in the transfiguration scenes of The Brothers Karamazov and as a source of experience in The Idiot is often cited in this respect. In fact, for all its victims in human history, epilepsy has been a sad burden which has disrupted and shortened life, causing suffering and castigation for the duration of their terrestrial journey.

• epilepsy
• health

• Department of Neurology, The Cleveland Clinic Foundation, Cleveland, USA

  Hans Lüders, Ronald P. Lesser

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