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In the early 1960ties, when working as a physician in an area with a particularly high incidence of epilepsy in the Mahenge mountains of southern Tanzania, Louise Jilek-Aall observed a peculiar type of epileptic seizures characterised by “dropping” or “nodding” movements of the head [1]. At a time prior to the introduction of the first Classification of Epileptic Seizures by the International League Against Epilepsy (ILAE) [2], these seizures were called “petit mal attacks” in order to distinguish them from generalised tonic-clonic seizures or “major attacks” [3].