[The epileptic heredity in several comitial children]

For most authors, hereditary epilepsy is restricted to a certain number of neuropsychiatric diseases liable to be transmitted and associated to epileptic seizures : such as the progressive epilepsy myoclonia of Ramsay-Hunt, or some neuroectodermoses (Bourneville's tuberous sclerosis). But those diseases are quite rare compared to the majority of the epileptic population we meet everyday. Yet it seems to us that there is a genetic predisposition in some patients suffering from epilepsy, generalized from the start, called idiopathic epilepsy (grand mal, petit mal, massive myoclonias), where no cerebral lesion can be found. For this research, we have undertaken the study of two families, one with three children, the other with two homozygous twins. All the children were suffering from clinical epilepsy. The altered state of the E.E.G. of the parents who do not have obvious apparent epileptic seizures, confirms the genetic role of certain idiopathic epilepsies. A study of bibliography accompanies the topic of this presentation.