Abstract

I cannot be sure, but I imagine that a high proportion of neuropaediatric hospital libraries in Europe and indeed Paediatric Neurologists will have this book—through the generosity of Sanofi-Synthélabo-whether in English as above or as the French version Les syndromes épileptiques de l'enfant et de l'adolescent. For those who don't, I have to say that it is a great and special book. The venture began in 1983 in Marseilles, intellectual home of the late Henri Gastaut and of most of the current editors, where a small meeting allowed interactions between the predominant Marseilles-Northern Italian school and international visitors, with a proportion of about 3:1. In the succeeding 20 years the number of contributors has almost doubled, but the ratio of Francophones to outsiders is much the same. This is in no way a criticism, quite the contrary, as the contributions of the Marseilles school to the ‘invention’ and delineation of epilepsy syndromes is enormous, even if not everybody can identify them in their child patients. It is good, however, to see new blood from down under in the person of Ingrid Scheffer from Melbourne. With Fabienne Picard, she has provided a chapter on ‘Recently defined genetic epilepsy syndromes’, with even more recent data included in an addendum added in proof, and references up to April 2002 (ARX and West syndrome).