Epilepsy during the Middle Ages, the Renaissance and the Enlightenment

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to pinpoint the views on epilepsy as a disease and symptom during medieval times and the Renaissance. A thorough study of texts, medical books and reports along with a review of the available literature in PubMed was undertaken. With the exception of some early Byzantine doctors in the East and some of the representatives of Arab medicine, scientific views and observations on epilepsy in the West were overrun by the domination of the Catholic Church. This led to the formulation of superstitious views of the disease; epileptics were considered possessed and, therefore, only religious methods could possibly cure it. Near the end of the fourteenth century, physicians were emancipated from Catholic intervention. The Renaissance is marked by a plethora of new treatises on epilepsy regarding the mechanisms of epileptic convulsions, the connection with various clinical conditions such as tumors and venereal diseases and the collection of interesting cases.