420 EPILEPSY. 



and, it may be, distant organs in a state of disease and dis- 

 turbance. 5. In cases where no obvious cause can be made 

 out, as an idiopathic affection so called or functional distur- 

 bance, to which only it is probable the term ' epilepsy ' ought 

 to be applied. 



From the circumstance that the greater number of animals 

 suft'ering from epilepsy have, on examination after deaths 

 shown no structural changes considered sufficient to account 

 for the symptoms exhibited, many have come to regard these 

 disease manifestations in idiopathic epilepsy as simply and 

 essentially the result of a certain peculiarity in the putting 

 forth of the nervous force, and to speak of it as disturbed 

 functional activity, the localization of which by the demonstra- 

 tion of specific textural changes in intimate nervous elements^ 

 or elsewhere in nervous tissue, has not yet been made out. 



Although it seems pretty certain that epileptic seizures may 

 result from various lesions of the nervous system, and highly 

 j-trobable, also, from influences out of this S3'stem, but operating 

 on it extrinsically, either through nervous connection and asso- 

 ciation, or by means of the blood, still the main features in con- 

 nection with these paroxysmal attacks, the loss of consciousness 

 and disturbed motorial activity, seem to direct our attention to 

 particular parts of the nervous centres, as the grey matter and 

 central ganglia of the brain proper, together with the upper or 

 anterior part of the spinal cord, as the situations most likely 

 to exhibit textural changes. Many examinations which I have 

 made of animals dying while suffering from an epileptic seizure, 

 have satisfied me that in numerous instances extensive and 

 apparently chronic disease of the membranes of the brain were 

 prominent features, and doubtless intimately associated with 

 the various attacks. These changes with as much truth may 

 bo regarded as the result of the repetition of these seizures as 

 the cause of their existence. 



In every case where local tissue-changes are met with, 

 whether these changes be congestive or inflammatory, or extend 

 to increase, loss, or structural change of tissue, always to con- 

 nect such exclusively with merely intrinsic and local phe- 

 nomena is unphilosophical and short-sighted. They can only 

 be properly understood cither in themselves or their con- 

 nection with other ^ihcnomcna, when regarded as parts of a 



