Epileptic Cure?

At the Women's Medical College of Pennsylvania, Dr. Eleanor C. Jones injected into the spinal column of a seven-year-old epileptic boy a newly developed drug--luminal. She claimed that the epileptic had been virtually cured--he no longer has eight or ten convulsions per day.

Luminal, developed in Germany during the last ten years, belongs to the same chemical group of drugs as chloral and veronal. Hitherto it has been regarded only as a sedative, a depressant of the nervous system, injected through the mouth or veins.

In recent years epilepsy has been more generally associated with a disorder of metabolism.* It is thought that poor elimination resulting in accumulation of poison has been the cause of epileptic fits.

Said Dr. Marshall Osnato, of Manhattan: "It is extremely unlikely that a drug which acted as a sedative when administered into the stomach or veins would be a permanent cure when injected into the spine."

*Assimilation of nutrition by the living tissues.