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Richard M. Dasheiff, MD
University of Pittsburgh (Pa) Epilepsy Center

JAMA. 1989;262(1):30.

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text PDF and any section headings.

To the Editor.—

I continue to see the terms "grand mal" and "petit mal" in JAMA and the other American Medical Association journals (eg, Archives of Neurology). These French terms originated in the 1800s and at that time constituted an appropriate classification system for epileptic seizures. However, there have been significant advances during the last century such that these terms are inadequate now. Advances, first through the use of electroencephalography and later of recording patients on videotape with electroencephalographic monitoring during seizures, have lead to a substantial body of information about seizures and epilepsy. A classification of seizures was adopted by the International League Against Epilepsy in 1969 and was revised in 1981.¹ The terms petit mal and grand mal are not advocated in this classification scheme. Although use of the new terms (simple partial seizure, complex partial seizure, tonic-clonic seizure, absence seizure, and so on) have only slowly . . . [Full Text PDF of this Article]

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