The End of Epilepsy?

The End of Epilepsy? PDF Author: Dieter Schmidt
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0191038733
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 209

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Book Description
Epilepsy is more than just a physical condition, the fact of simply having epileptic seizures, it has cultural, geographic and historical meaning and significance which go beyond that of a neurological disorder, and which defy a single perspective. The End of Epilepsy? is a beautifully illustrated, authoritative, and engaging history of medical developments during the modern era of epilepsy, which began with the introduction of Bromides and Hughlings-Jacksons definition of epilepsy in 1860. This thought-provoking book comprehensively covers the definitions of and the attitudes to epilepsy over the past 150 years, and describes the bureaucracies surrounding the condition. It explores the technological advances, and the different management techniques, with antiepileptic drugs and surgery, which have been applied to epilepsy up to the present day. After presenting an overview both of the advances and improvements made, and also of the dark side which has cast shadows over medical and social progress, the authors then critically examine on-going research into new treatments for epilepsy, and provide an insight into the complex underpinnings of scientific and medical practice. They look forward to a time when the condition will no longer be, as Temkin put it, a paradigm of the suffering of both body and soul in disease.

The History of Modern Epilepsy

The History of Modern Epilepsy PDF Author: Walter J. Friedlander
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN: 0313003114
Category : Health & Fitness
Languages : en
Pages : 310

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Book Description
Although the history of epilepsy, one of the most common serious neurological disorders, can easily be traced back to ancient times, the modern understanding of the disease only began in the middle of the 19th century. This history of the first fifty years of modern epileptology reflects the thinking, accomplishments, and failures of physicians between 1865 and 1914. This epoch presented a very bleak clinical picture: diagnosis was difficult and often arbitrary; treatment was poor and, at times, worse than the disease; and patients, who were usually viewed as having a progressive dementing condition, were shunned by society. Tradition, physicians' immaculate perceptions, their thinking in analogies, and the difficulty a doctor has in separating himself from his society are some of the important factors which led to a lack of clinical advancement during this time. Nevertheless, taking a longer view, a foundation was being established for understanding the physiology of the brain and how that might be related to epilepsy. This book should be of interest to any professional person concerned with or involved in exploring the neurophysiology of brain functions and its deviations, the care and treatment of patience with epilepsy, and the historical and social aspects of medicine.

Introduction to Epilepsy

Introduction to Epilepsy PDF Author: Gonzalo Alarcón
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 0521691583
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 641

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Book Description
Covers all aspects of epilepsy, from basic mechanisms to diagnosis and management, as well as legal and social considerations.

A Disease Once Sacred

A Disease Once Sacred PDF Author: Mervyn J. Eadie
Publisher: John Libbey Eurotext
ISBN:
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 260

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Book Description
Uses current knowledge of epilepsy and epileptic seizures as a yardstick against which to interpret the thinking of the past. Attempts to trace the development of thought about individual aspects of the understanding of epilepsy one after the other and on a chronological basis.

The End of Epilepsy?

The End of Epilepsy? PDF Author: Dieter Schmidt
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0191038741
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 305

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Book Description
Epilepsy is more than just a physical condition, the fact of simply having epileptic seizures, it has cultural, geographic and historical meaning and significance which go beyond that of a neurological disorder, and which defy a single perspective. The End of Epilepsy? is a beautifully illustrated, authoritative, and engaging history of medical developments during the modern era of epilepsy, which began with the introduction of Bromides and Hughlings-Jacksons definition of epilepsy in 1860. This thought-provoking book comprehensively covers the definitions of and the attitudes to epilepsy over the past 150 years, and describes the bureaucracies surrounding the condition. It explores the technological advances, and the different management techniques, with antiepileptic drugs and surgery, which have been applied to epilepsy up to the present day. After presenting an overview both of the advances and improvements made, and also of the dark side which has cast shadows over medical and social progress, the authors then critically examine on-going research into new treatments for epilepsy, and provide an insight into the complex underpinnings of scientific and medical practice. They look forward to a time when the condition will no longer be, as Temkin put it, a paradigm of the suffering of both body and soul in disease.

The Causes of Epilepsy

The Causes of Epilepsy PDF Author: Simon Shorvon
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108420753
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 1013

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Book Description
Expanded and revised, this unique book provides concise descriptions of the many causes of epilepsy, for use in clinical practice.

The Falling Sickness

The Falling Sickness PDF Author: Owsei Temkin
Publisher: JHU Press
ISBN: 1421400537
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 530

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Book Description
"A thoroughly admirable and informative introduction to our knowledge of epilepsy in the Western world from antiquity to the early twentieth century." - American Scientist Owsei Temkin presents the history of epilepsy in Western civilization from ancient times to the beginnings of modern neurology. First published in 1945 and thoroughly revised in 1971, this classic work by one of the history of medicine's most eminent scholars now returns to print available in both paperback and eBook formats.

The Falling Sickness

The Falling Sickness PDF Author: Owsei Temkin
Publisher: JHU Press
ISBN: 9780801848490
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 492

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Book Description
"A thoroughly admirable and informative introduction to our knowledge of epilepsy in the Western world from antiquity to the early twentieth century." - American Scientist Owsei Temkin presents the history of epilepsy in Western civilization from ancient times to the beginnings of modern neurology. First published in 1945 and thoroughly revised in 1971, this classic work by one of the history of medicine's most eminent scholars now returns to print available in both paperback and eBook formats.

The Idea of Epilepsy

The Idea of Epilepsy PDF Author: Simon D. Shorvon
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108905315
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 761

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Book Description
Epilepsy has a fascinating history. To the medical historian Oswei Temkin it was 'the paradigm of the suffering of both body and soul in disease'. It is justifiably considered a window on brain function. And yet its story is more than simply a medical narrative, but one influenced also by scientific, societal and personal themes. Written for a medical and non-medical readership, this book describes the major developments in epilepsy between 1860–2020, a turbulent era in which science dominated as an explanatory model, medical theories and practices steered an erratic course, and societal attitudes and approaches to epilepsy fluctuated dramatically. In the middle of this maelstrom was the person with epilepsy at the mercy of social attitudes and legislation, and at times harmed as well as helped by medicine and science. So entangled is the history that intriguingly, as an entity, epilepsy may now be thought not even to exist.

The Epilepsies

The Epilepsies PDF Author: Chrysostomos P. Panayiotopoulos
Publisher: Springer
ISBN:
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 570

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Book Description
This book gives an exhaustive account of the classification and management of epileptic disorders. It provides clear didactic guidance on the diagnosis and treatment of epileptic syndromes and seizures through thirteen chapters, complemented by a pharmacopoeia and CD ROM of video-EEGs.

On the Sacred Disease

On the Sacred Disease PDF Author: Hippocrates
Publisher: Library of Alexandria
ISBN: 1465528040
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 23

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Book Description
It is thus with regard to the disease called Sacred: it appears to me to be nowise more divine nor more sacred than other diseases, but has a natural cause from the originates like other affections. Men regard its nature and cause as divine from ignorance and wonder, because it is not at all like to other diseases. And this notion of its divinity is kept up by their inability to comprehend it, and the simplicity of the mode by which it is cured, for men are freed from it by purifications and incantations. But if it is reckoned divine because it is wonderful, instead of one there are many diseases which would be sacred; for, as I will show, there are others no less wonderful and prodigious, which nobody imagines to be sacred. The quotidian, tertian, and quartan fevers, seem to me no less sacred and divine in their origin than this disease, although they are not reckoned so wonderful. And I see men become mad and demented from no manifest cause, and at the same time doing many things out of place; and I have known many persons in sleep groaning and crying out, some in a state of suffocation, some jumping up and fleeing out of doors, and deprived of their reason until they awaken, and afterward becoming well and rational as before, although they be pale and weak; and this will happen not once but frequently. And there are many and various things of the like kind, which it would be tedious to state particularly. They who first referred this malady to the gods appear to me to have been just such persons as the conjurors, purificators, mountebanks, and charlatans now are, who give themselves out for being excessively religious, and as knowing more than other people. Such persons, then, using the divinity as a pretext and screen of their own inability to of their own inability to afford any assistance, have given out that the disease is sacred, adding suitable reasons for this opinion, they have instituted a mode of treatment which is safe for themselves, namely, by applying purifications and incantations, and enforcing abstinence from baths and many articles of food which are unwholesome to men in diseases. Of sea substances, the surmullet, the blacktail, the mullet, and the eel; for these are the fishes most to be guarded against. And of fleshes, those of the goat, the stag, the sow, and the dog: for these are the kinds of flesh which are aptest to disorder the bowels. Of fowls, the cock, the turtle, and the bustard, and such others as are reckoned to be particularly strong. And of potherbs, mint, garlic, and onions; for what is acrid does not agree with a weak person. And they forbid to have a black robe, because black is expressive of death; and to sleep on a goat’s skin, or to wear it, and to put one foot upon another, or one hand upon another; for all these things are held to be hindrances to the cure. All these they enjoin with reference to its divinity, as if possessed of more knowledge, and announcing beforehand other causes so that if the person should recover, theirs would be the honor and credit; and if he should die, they would have a certain defense, as if the gods, and not they, were to blame, seeing they had administered nothing either to eat or drink as medicines, nor had overheated him with baths, so as to prove the cause of what had happened. But I am of opinion that (if this were true) none of the Libyans, who live in the interior, would be free from this disease, since they all sleep on goats’ skins, and live upon goats’ flesh; neither have they couch, robe, nor shoe that is not made of goat’s skin, for they have no other herds but goats and oxen. But if these things, when administered in food, aggravate the disease, and if it be cured by abstinence from them, godhead is not the cause at all; nor will purifications be of any avail, but it is the food which is beneficial and prejudicial, and the influence of the divinity vanishes.