RT Journal
T1 INvestigations on epilepsy and water metabolism.
JF Archives of Internal Medicine
JO Archives of Internal Medicine
YR 1939
FD March 1
VO 63
IS 3
SP 605
OP 606
DO 10.1001/archinte.1939.00180200174016
UL http://dx.doi.org/10.1001/archinte.1939.00180200174016
AB In this monograph Teglbjaerg reports the results of studies on the metabolism of water in cases of epilepsy and the effects of variations in the intake of water on the frequency of seizures. The work was done in the Filadelfia colony for epileptic patients in Dianalund, Denmark. The author assumes that there is a dualistic pathogenesis of epilepsy—a "cerebral factor," in the form of a disease of the brain, and a "humoral factor" of constitutional origin, resulting in a lowered threshold for convulsions. In cryptogenic epilepsy the cerebral factor is not demonstrable, but its presence must be assumed, chiefly by analogy. The arguments for the humoral factor include the precipitation of seizures by hyperventilation in a high percentage of cases, the failure of trauma and tumors to produce epilepsy in many cases and the tenfold greater frequency of epilepsy among relatives of epileptic patients than among "normal" persons. To these