The earliest experimental convulsions by Joseph Priestley in 1766 friendship with Benjamin Franklin

In 1766, Joseph Priestley (1733-1804) was the first to systematically demonstrate the universal convulsive effect of an electrical discharge applied to the head of all the several species studied. We here republish his overlooked experiments, which often resulted in death, and which ante date the scientific studies of the electrical functions of the brain, the role of "discharges" in seizures, and experimental epilepsy by about a century. Priestley's studies of electricity were influenced by those of Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790), who became a good friend during Franklin's prolonged period in London between 1757 and 1775. Both were elected Fellows of the Royal Society and both were awarded the Copley Medal of that Society. Priestley's experiments are relevant to the history of epilepsy and neuropsychiatry, and to the modern study of sudden unexplained death in epilepsy (SUDEP).