Epilepsy and falling sickness

Use in the book

Epilepsy is not merely one more example of melancholy. The anatomical argument assigns apoplexy and epilepsy to ventricular obstruction, in contrast to melancholy affecting the brain’s substance. Yet later passages report epilepsy developing into melancholy and melancholy developing into epilepsy. In the latter account, entry into the ventricles matters; the following paragraph distinguishes the predicted outcomes of cold and hot causes. Disease names remain distinguishable even when their histories cross. Falling sickness can also be an accompanying fit within Burton’s account of hydrophobia, not an explanation replacing that account.

The proposed causes range well beyond that anatomy. Burton reports an astrological judgment that certain nativities produce epileptic, deranged or melancholy people. A patient of Amatus Lusitanus is said to become epileptic after bad news; fearful spectators of an epileptic attack are said to reproduce symptoms through imagination. These passages concern attributed powers of stars, sudden impressions and apprehension, not evidence that the disease has a single demonstrated cause. In the discussion of brain moisture, the compressed adjective “Epileptical” is associated with an abundance of humours, while dryness is associated with wakefulness and vertigo.

Inheritance introduces consequences for other people. Burton recounts Boece’s claim that ancient Scots castrated affected men, separated women from men and buried a pregnant woman alive to prevent the propagation of diseases including falling sickness. The next paragraph says such measures are not to be used among Christians, but still advocates closer restriction of marriage. Both elements matter: the passage neither straightforwardly orders the reported atrocities nor rejects the larger project of coercive reproductive control. The editorial note locates Boece’s report without treating it as independent proof of Scottish law.

Epilepsy is especially revealing in the competing cures. Paracelsus’s followers make falling-sickness one of four governing classes, with palsy, vertigo and apoplexy subordinate to it; Burton calls the resulting claim for a common cure too general. Authorities are then reported as claiming benefit from sexual activity, but the discussion itself restricts that claim: the supposed cause and bodily constitution must justify it, and Montalto excludes patients with epilepsy unless robust and full of blood. Apparent contradictions are part of a compilation weighing qualifications, not permission to extract one recommendation.

Other reports distinguish kinds of therapeutic authority. Touch cures occur in the account of witchcraft; Valentine is assigned falling sickness in the polemical catalogue of saints; peony appears in a discussion of amulets which Burton says should not be wholly rejected. These are not all instances of one undifferentiated “superstition” in his argument. Their speakers, religious status and claims to natural power differ. The main articles on witchcraft and charms retain those broader distinctions.

Finally, an illness-word can be weaponized without diagnosing anybody. In the proposed campaign to detach a lover from a beloved, falling-sickness appears among frightening allegations. The following Latin advice, introduced as Gordonius’s, tells an old woman to say that the beloved is epileptica & impudica. “Epileptic” and “unchaste” are separate predicates joined in a stigmatizing performance. The passage does not make epilepsy itself a synonym for sexual misconduct.

Related entries

Witchcraft and Charms retain the larger debate over extraordinary cures. Cerebral chambers and Prognostics explain the anatomical and predictive structures. Compare Apoplexy (Apoplexy), Palsy (Palsy), Convulsion and cramp (Convulsion and cramp) and Hydrophobia (Hydrophobia).

Explained vocabulary: Additional Terms.

Places to read

1. Subsection 3. Classification of Diseases of the Head · paragraph 14Falling sickness in the classification of internal disorders.
2. Subsection 4. Mental Impairment, Frenzy, Madness, Hydrophobia, Lycanthropy, St Vitus’s Dance and Ecstasy · paragraph 32Fits of falling sickness among the reported signs of hydrophobia.
3. Subsection 2. The Part Affected The Faculty Affected and the People Affected · paragraph 14Epilepsy contrasted with melancholy by anatomical location.
4. Subsection 3 Witches and Magicians: How They Cause Melancholy · paragraph 52Claims of cures by touch in the witchcraft discussion.
5. Subsection 4. The Stars as a Cause. Signs From Physiognomy, Metoposcopy and Chiromancy · paragraph 12Astrological judgments and overlapping historical categories.
6. Subsection 6. Parents as a Cause Through Inheritance · paragraph 22; note 2328; note 2329Boece’s coercive-inheritance narrative; compare the accompanying note.
7. Subsection 6. Parents as a Cause Through Inheritance · paragraph 23Burton’s rejection of those punishments and continued demand for marriage restrictions. [Context, not a headword attestation.]
8. Subsection 3 Terrors and Frights as Causes of Melancholy · paragraph 18The reported patient affected by bad news.
9. Member 5 Subsection 1 Immediate, Internal, Antecedent and Proximate Causes, and How the Body Acts Upon the Mind · paragraph 57Epilepsy as a supposed antecedent of melancholy.
10. Subsection 2. Symptoms or Signs in the Mind · paragraph 43An acute fit witnessed and then feared by another person.
11. Member 2, Subsection 1 Symptoms of Head Melancholy · paragraph 5Epileptical symptoms in the account of brain moisture.
12. Section 4 Member 1 Prognosis of Melancholy · paragraph 11Melancholy progressing into epilepsy and other disorders.
13. Section 4 Member 1 Prognosis of Melancholy · paragraph 12The further distinction between cold and hot trajectories.
14. Member 3. Whether It Is Lawful to Seek the Saints' Help in This Disease · paragraph 25Valentine’s alleged patronage of falling sickness.
15. Subsection 3. Concerning Medicine · paragraph 6Falling-sickness elevated to a principal disease class.
16. Subsection 3. Concerning Medicine · paragraph 7The immediate objection to the class-based common cure. [Context, not a headword attestation.]
17. Member 2. Retention and Evacuation Corrected · paragraph 2Reported cures through sexual activity.
18. Member 2. Retention and Evacuation Corrected · paragraph 5Conditions limiting the apparent general claim. [Context, not a headword attestation.]
19. Member 2. Retention and Evacuation Corrected · paragraph 6Montalto’s restrictive exception for robust patients.
20. Subsection 3 Alteratives Herbs and Other Plant Remedies · paragraph 13Further spelling evidence for falling sicknesse in the reported Scorzonera claim; no additional disease definition is supplied.
21. Subsection 3 Alteratives Herbs and Other Plant Remedies · paragraph 14Further spelling evidence for falling-sicknes in the reported betony claim; used here as lexical corroboration.
22. Subsection 5 Alteratives and Cordials That Strengthen the Body, Disperse the Remaining Matter and Improve the Temperament · paragraph 28The hidden-natural-power setting for the amulet discussion. [Context, not a headword attestation.]
23. Subsection 5 Alteratives and Cordials That Strengthen the Body, Disperse the Remaining Matter and Improve the Temperament · paragraph 29Peony’s alleged use against epilepsy.
24. Resist the Beginnings, Avoid Occasions, Change One’s Location; Fair and Foul Means, Contrary Passions and Ingenious Devices; Introduce Another Love and Disparage the Former · paragraph 51Falling-sickness in allegations designed to repel a lover.
25. Resist the Beginnings, Avoid Occasions, Change One’s Location; Fair and Foul Means, Contrary Passions and Ingenious Devices; Introduce Another Love and Disparage the Former · paragraph 53The attribution of the ensuing Latin advice to Gordonius. [Context, not a headword attestation.]
26. Resist the Beginnings, Avoid Occasions, Change One’s Location; Fair and Foul Means, Contrary Passions and Ingenious Devices; Introduce Another Love and Disparage the Former · paragraph 54Epileptica and impudica as separately coordinated allegations.

In this edition

The modern “epileptic seizure” translates the whole phrase Epileptick Paroxysme: Paroxysme, not the adjective alone, supplies the sense of an acute attack. In “Epileptical, with a multitude of humors,” the rendering “epileptic symptoms” supplies a noun to the compressed original. The marginal Morbo comitiali in the Scottish report is another Latin route to the disease-name, translated there as epilepsy. None of these transformations licenses assigning every falling, trembling or unconscious episode elsewhere in the work to this headword.

Epilepsie; Epilepsy

The historical disease-name epilepsy.

Original wording: “an Apoplexie, or Epilepsie”

Modern wording: “apoplexy or epilepsy”

The name is paired with apoplexy as an alternative to melancholy when the disorder is assigned to ventricular blockage. Other passages instead describe temporal transitions between the named diseases. Further checked occurrences: the passage; the passage. Lookup: epilepsy; epilepsie; epilepsies.

falling sickness

The vernacular disease-name corresponding to epilepsy.

Original wording: “fits of the falling sickness”

Modern wording: “fits of the falling sickness”

In this passage fits are included among the reported symptoms of hydrophobia. The phrase does not mean that every fall is epileptic, or that hydrophobia and epilepsy are identical. Further checked occurrences: the passage; the passage; the passage. Lookup: falling-sickness; falling-sicknesse; falling sicknesse; falling-sicknes; falling sicknes.

Epileptick Paroxysme

An acute epileptic attack or seizure.

Original wording: “an Epileptick Paroxysme”

Modern wording: “an epileptic seizure”

Paroxysme supplies the event or fit; Epileptick qualifies it. The passage concerns the effect that witnessing such an attack supposedly has on a fearful spectator. Lookup: epileptick; epileptic seizure; paroxysm; paroxysme.

The same attestation is also explained at Epileptick Paroxysme; the two contextual records distinguish the named seizure disorder and the episodic sense of paroxysm, rather than claiming two distinct lemmas.

Epilepticus; Epileptical

Epileptic, applied to a person or to implied symptoms.

Original wording: “became Epilepticus”

Modern wording: “became epileptic”

The Latin adjective describes Amatus’s reported patient after bad news. The English derivative Epileptical is syntactically compressed; the modern edition supplies “symptoms,” not a new disease-name. Further checked occurrences: the passage. Lookup: epilepticus; epileptical; epileptic.

Morbo comitiali

With epilepsy; the disease-name in an inflected Latin phrase.

Original wording: “Morbo comitiali”

Note translation: “suffering from epilepsy”

The phrase begins the marginal disease-list attributed to Boece. It is part of the report of coercive measures against people assumed capable of transmitting illness to children; the note does not independently establish those measures as historical law. Lookup: morbus comitialis [dictionary access form]; comitiali.

epileptica & impudica

Epileptic and unchaste: two allegations to be made about a beloved.

Original wording: “quod est epileptica & impudica”

Modern wording: “is epileptic and unchaste”

The conjunction separates the disease allegation from the sexual insult. Gordonius’s proposed speaker is instructed to say these things in order to cause disgust; the text is not verifying either assertion. Lookup: epileptica; impudica; unchaste.