[Samuel-Auguste Tissot 1728-1797): on the 200th anniversary of his death]

Samuel-Auguste Tissot (1728-1797), general practitioner in the Swiss city of Lausanne, was one of the great physicians of the eighteenth century (the Age of Enlightenment), one of the founders of rational medicine and a firm foe of quackery. He was renowned for his popular book "Avis au peuple sur sa santé" (published in 1761), which furthered the understanding of sanitary principles, dietetics and prevention among ordinary people and gave advice on self-treatment for inhabitants of remote areas. His most significant scientific book was the "Traité de l'épilepsie", published in 1770. There, Tissot describes the symptomatology of nearly every form of epileptic seizures and expresses his views on the pathogenesis, course and prognosis of epilepsy. The book remains one of the cornerstones of modern epileptology.