Epileptic strabismus: A brief artistic and historical overview of an unusual phenomenon

Ictal epileptic strabismus is a very rare phenomenon. Although its first report in the contemporary medical literature dates to 1996, it was depicted in the arts and described in the scientific literature well before the 20th century. Strabismus associated with epilepsy appears in the Transfiguration (1518/1520) by Raphael (1483-1520) and was shown in the possessed man and woman in the Miracle of St Ignatius of Loyola (1617-1618) by Peter Paul Rubens (1577-1640). In the medical literature, it was first mentioned by the German anatomist and surgeon Lorenz Heister (1683-1758) and was later discussed by the British neurologists John Russell Reynolds (1828-1896) and William Richard Gowers (1845-1915). Although exceptionally rare, epileptic strabismus has caught the attention of physicians and artists alike as an unusual and intriguing phenomenon.