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Hallmarks in the history of epilepsy: epilepsy in antiquity
Emmanouil Magiorkinis1, Kalliopi Sidiropoulou, Aristidis Diamantis
1Office for the Study of History of Hellenic Naval Medicine, Naval Hospital of Athens, Athens, Greece. mayiork@med.uoa.gr
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.
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