The Anatomic Substratum of the Convulsive State

The first question which the clinician puts to the anatomist is important in the problem of epilepsy: What is the substratum of the process? Can this process be diagnosed anatomically, and can it be defined or limited anatomically? It is known that anatomy has done much to divide epilepsy into many single entities. It has helped to classify more and more cases in the group of "symptomatic" epilepsy, not only as previously by the gross anatomic processes, but also by the finer, histologically peculiar changes. The main question now is: Has a group remained after this division of epilepsy which one can designate as "genuine" epilepsy, from the anatomic point of view? To date, one is unable to do this. One can say only that one finds many cases in which histologic investigation discloses nothing or nearly nothing that is characteristic. One must admit, however,a priorithat one possibly