[Etiology and pathogenesis of epilepsy in children].

Under examination there were 420 children suffering from epilepsy. In 230 of them the convulsive seizures appeared during the first year of the life: in most of these children (71%) this was in the presence of perinatal pathology. A genealogical analysis of 112 families, from which 135 epileptic children descended, is presented. Various types of hereditary epilepsy were revealed. An examination of some enzymes contained in the cerebrospinal fluid of the epileptic patients revealed shifts in their metabolism in cases of both hereditary and sporadic epilepsy. This reflects common features of the pathogenesis of those forms.