Fits...

[Oatso]

I did a first aid course a couple of years ago and we were told about people having fits. Not epileptic fits, but fits where the person just passes out for a few seconds then wakes up like nothing has happened. Then I remember seeing an advert on TV where a man was walking down some stairs, then he blacks out and falls down the stairs but before he gets to the bottom he wakes up and walks down the last few stairs. Does anybody know what these are called, I can't remember the name?

[david small]

Pete-mal my sister suffered them for years.

[Altosruleok]

Petit mal. It mean "little illness". They are still a form of epilepsy, but without the thrashing around.

[Golem]

Words and phrases fall in and out of fashion like most other things and the British Epilepsy Society now prefer to use the word 'absence' to describe this particular type of seizure:

http://www.epilepsy.org.uk/info/absence.html

[lethologica]

Narcolepsy perhaps?