This article is only available in the PDF format. Download the PDF to view the article, as well as its associated figures and tables. "But of all sad words of tongue and pen, the saddest are these, 'it might have been'; more sad are these we daily see, 'it is, but hadn't ought to be'. " Bret Harte Most pharmacologists and too few clinicians appreciate the hiatus between what we know about drug structure—activity, absorption, binding, distribution, interaction, metabolism, side effects, or toxicity—and our application of this burgeoning collection of information to the practical therapeutic problem of when? what? how much? how many? This volume surveys the clinical and experimental pathophysiology of seizures as well as the pharmacology of therapeutic agents employed to treat such disorders. Mercier's piquant historical sketch of selected ideas concerning the nature and treatment of epilepsy iterates the need for such a comprehensive multidisciplinary approach. Gastaut's presentation of the clinical nature, classification, pathophysiology, and differential diagnosis of epileptic seizures is lucid and thorough. Widely accepted as a workable approach to a