The Idea of Epilepsy

Description:

Epilepsy has a fascinating history. To the medical historian Oswei Temkin it was 'the paradigm of the suffering of both body and soul in disease'. It is justifiably considered a window on brain function. And yet its story is more than simply a medical narrative, but one influenced also by scientific, societal and personal themes. Written for a medical and non-medical readership, this book describes the major developments in epilepsy between 1860–2020, a turbulent era in which science dominated as an explanatory model, medical theories and practices steered an erratic course, and societal attitudes and approaches to epilepsy fluctuated dramatically. In the middle of this maelstrom was the person with epilepsy at the mercy of social attitudes and legislation, and at times harmed as well as helped by medicine and science. So entangled is the history that intriguingly, as an entity, epilepsy may now be thought not even to exist.

Table of Contents:

Section 1 The Voyage Of The Good Ship Epilepsy

Introduction

Prologue: A Note on the Concept – the Idea – of Epilepsy

Section 2 ‘A Plague upon Your Epileptic Visage’

One 1860–1914: The Birth of Modern Epilepsy

Two 1914–1945: Epilepsy in the Age of Catastrophe

Three 1945–1970: Epilepsy and the New World Order

Four 1970–1995: Epilepsy in a Globalised World

Five 1995–2020: The Epilepsy Floods are Too Recent

Section 3 Epilepsy: The Paradigm of the Suffering of Both Body and Soul in Disease

Epilogue The Separation of the Wheat from the Chaff

Appendix 1 ‘The Epilepsy Balance Sheet’

Appendix 2 Obsolete Or Failed Theories And Treatments

Appendix 3 The International League Against Epilepsy