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This episode we begin a two-part exploration into the understanding and treatment of epilepsy in the middle ages. But to get to the medieval, we have to start with its ancient antecedents, so here in Part 1, we look at texts produced by the Hippocratic school and its later followers.
Today’s Texts:
- Lucretius. On the Nature of Things. Translated by John Selby Watson and John Mason Good, George Bell & Sons, 1893. Internet Archive.
- Wilson, J.V. Kinnier, and E. H. Reynolds, translators. “Translation and Analysis of a Cuneiform Text Forming Part of a Babylonian Treatise on Epilepsy,” Medical History, vol. 34, 1990, pp. 185-198. National Center for Biotechnical Information,www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1036070/
- Hippocrates. “On the Sacred Disease.” The Genuine Works of Hippocrates, vol. 2, translated by Francis Adams, Sydenham Society, 1849, pp. 831-858. Google Books.
- Galen. “Advice for an Epileptic Boy.” Translated by Owsei Temkin, Texts and Documents, reprinted from Bulletin of the Institute of the History of Medicine, vol. 2, no. 3, May 1934, pp. 179-189. Archive.org.
- Paulus Ægineta. The Medical Works of Paulus Ægineta, the Greek Physician. Vol. 1, edited and translated by Francis Adams, J. Welsh, 1834. Google Books.
References:
- AL-Zwaini, Isam Jaber, and Ban Adbul-Hameed Majeed Albadri. “Epilepsy — The Long Journey of the Sacred Disease.” Epilepsy — Advances in Diagnosis and Therapy, IntechOpen, 2019, pp. 1-10. Academia.edu.
- Diamantis, Aristidis, Kalliopi Sidiropoulou, and Emmanouil Magiorkinis. “Epilepsy during the Middle Ages, the Renaissance and the Enlightenment.” Journal of Neurology, vol. 257, 2010, pp. 691-698. DOI: 10.1007/s00415-009-5433-7. Academia.edu.
- Katz, Arnold M. “Knowledge of Circulation Before William Harvey.” Circulation, vol. 15, May 1957, pp. 726-734. American Heart Association.
- Patel, Puja, and Solomon L. Moshé. “The evolution of the concepts of seizures and epilepsy: What’s in a name?” Epilepsia Open, vol. 5, 2020, pp. 22-35. DOI: 10.1002/EPI4.12375. Academia.edu.
- Schachter, Steven C. “Seizure Triggers.” Epilepsy Foundation, 2026, www.epilepsy.com/what-is-epilepsy/seizure-triggers
- Temkin, Owsei. The Falling Sickness: A History of Epilepsy from the Greeks to the Beginnings of Modern Neurology. 2nd ed., revised, Johns Hopkins Press, 1971. Archive.org.
Image Credits:
- Babylonian tablet on epilepsy (British Museum, Tablet 47753, obverse, CC BY-NC-SA 4.0).
- Papyrus fragment of Hippocratic oath (Wellcome Collection, via Wikimedia Commons, CC-BY 4.0).
- Printed engraving depicting Galen, Avicenna, and Hippocrates from a 16th-century medical book (Wikimedia Commons).
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