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To the Editor:—In reply to Dr. Peterman's letter regarding two of our recent publications, I wish to say that we have placed no claim on the mechanical theory of epilepsy with reference to the effect of dehydration. Nor have we presumed to be the first to observe the dehydrating effect of the ketogenic type of diet. Hippocrates expressed the former several hundred years B. C., and Stark found the latter to be true in 1769. We had not read the paper of Elsberg and Pike (1926) on the effects of increased intracranial pressure in cats and so had missed their brief speculation regarding the possible benefit of fasting in epilepsy. This particular phase of the problem has concerned us only incidentally.
As stated in our short paper, my interest in the water balance problem had its origin several years ago in the observation of Gamble, Ross and Tisdall (J.