IN ANOTHER paper,1 a comparison is made of the anticonvulsant activities of antiepileptic drugs by two electric shock methods. The order of potency of these compounds was found to be the same when tested by the procedure of Putnam and Merritt2 in the cat and by that of Toman, Swinyard and Goodman3 in the mouse. In the rat, the latter procedure gave some compounds a relative potency different from that in the other two species of animals.
In this paper, there will be presented from the standpoint of chemical structure and pharmacologic action the anticonvulsant activities of three series of compounds: (a) 2-phenyl-3-alkyl-4-thiazolidones and their dioxides, (b) l-alkyl-5-thienylhydantoins and (c) 5,5-di-aryl-hydantoins. The results were obtained with the two electric shock procedures in cats, rats and mice. These, and the data for some miscellaneous compounds, are analyzed to show the specificity of the two methods and the species