SODIUM DIPHENYL HYDANTOINATE IN THE TREATMENT OF CONVULSIVE DISORDERS

Abstract

Good results in the treatment of patients with convulsive seizures have been obtained by a variety of methods, such as medical treatment with bromides or barbituric acid compounds, the ketogenic diet, restriction of fluids, and the surgical excision of scars or irritable cortical foci. In spite of these various therapeutic means there are a great number of patients who are not relieved of their attacks or are helped only temporarily by treatment. The fact that treatment by anticonvulsant drugs is at present the most widely used and on the whole the most effective method of therapy suggested to us the possibility that a direct and systematic experimental search might reveal more potent and less sedative compounds. With this idea in mind we devised an experimental proecdure¹which would produce convulsive seizures in animals at a constant threshold and which would allow for a qualitative and roughly quantitative determination of