In a search for new drugs for patients with petit mal during the past several years, it became apparent to us that contradictory reports by various investigators were largely the result of lack of uniformity in presenting data and of differences in the nature of the case load itself. We felt that since the first aspect of the problem was largely statistical, this could greatly be improved by reporting results systematically and in some detail. The second difficulty—until there is more unanimity of opinion on diagnostic category—can, we believe, be minimized by the use of identical cases for all drugs evaluated. It was also clear that the effectiveness of new compounds could not be judged by comparison with each other or with standard drugs unless a standardized method of evaluation was used for all drugs tested. Since a solution to this problem is important, both to the epileptologist and the