Hallmarks in the history of epilepsy: epilepsy in antiquity

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to highlight the hallmarks of epilepsy as a disease and symptom during antiquity and especially during Ancient Greece and Rome. A thorough study of texts, medical books, and reports along with a review of the available literature in PubMed was undertaken. Observations on epilepsy date back to the medical texts of the Assyrians and Babylonians, almost 2000 years B.C. Considered initially as a divine malady or demonic possession, epilepsy was demythologized by the Father of Medicine, Hippocrates, who was the first to set in dispute its divine origin. Physicians in the early post-Hippocratic era did not make any important contribution regarding the mechanisms of epileptic convulsions, but contributed mainly in the field of nosology and systemization of symptoms.