The role of the vascular bed has long been of interest to epileptologists.1 Kennedy2 mentioned the whitening of the brain at operation preceding a convulsion, and Foerster3 noted preparoxysmal anemia of the brain so frequently that on the basis of its occurrence he could predict the subsequent onset of the convulsion. However, Penfield, von Santha and Cipriani4 stated that "vascular spasms and anaemias may be concerned in the background of epilepsy but at all events they play no role in the actual mechanism during a seizure." After measuring the blood flow in the jugular veins thermoelectrically, Gibbs, Lennox and Gibbs5 concluded that their evidence was against the theory of widespread anemia of the brain as an immediate cause of epileptic seizures.
The work just mentioned, especially the observations at the operating table, in the main has been done on patients who, for various reasons, were