Epilepsy - A Brief Historical Perspective

Hippocrates, known as the father of medicine, in his book The Sacred Disease of 400 B.C., refuted the belief that this hidden and fearful disease of epilepsy had any sacredness at all!

The belief in the sacred or divine nature of epilepsy lasted for many centuries along with other beliefs about epilepsy. Another book, Malleus Maleficarum, a handbook on witch-hunting written by two Dominican friars in 1494, identified the presence of seizures as a characteristic of witches, signing death warrants for many people with such an affliction.

Because of epilepsy’s elegant and varied array of signs and symptoms of voice, movement and behaviour, it would seem that we have been confusing, and frightening people for centuries. So much so that a short list of many names and qualities besides witch and ‘divine‘ is:

degenerate, idiots and lunatics

possessed of demons

an affinity for music and dance

morally insane and that

epilepsy was contagious

There have been epilepsy colonies to remove epileptics from society, the last closing as recently as the 1950’s and 1960‘s. We have been dumped, shunned and in general pushed aside as inferior to others. Beliefs are the framework by which individuals and cultures define those things that cannot be understood easily and so culture, belief systems and superficial medical knowledge all contributed to these odd, and in some cases, fatal beliefs.

While we must be careful not to medicalize the human condition, it was a good thing that Hippocrates began this discussion so many centuries ago. As medicine has evolved, learning about the various ways that our brains function, neurology and neurobiology have come to the fore, providing us with diagnosis, medication, and treatment. These medical advances through history, while slow and not without difficulty, have allowed us to take a rightful place within society.

“Men think epilepsy divine, merely because they do not

understand it. But if they called everything divine which they

do not understand, why, there would be no end to divine things.”

~ Hippocrates