The falling sickness : a history of epilepsy from the Greeks to the beginnings of modern neurology / Owsei Temkin.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Temkin, Owsei, 1902-2002, author.

Contributor:

Mark B. Adams Emergence of Modern Science Collection (University of Pennsylvania)

Series:

Publications of the Institute of the History of Medicine, the Johns Hopkins University. Monographs ; First series, v. 4.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Epilepsy--History.

Epilepsy.

History.

Epilepsy--history.

Medical Subjects:

Epilepsy--history.

Genre:

History.

Penn Provenance:

Adams, Mark B. (former owner) (Adams copy)

Physical Description:

vi unnumbered pages, vii-xv pages, 2 unnumbered pages, 3-467 pages, 1 unnumbered page : illustrations ; 24 cm

Edition:

Second edition, revised.

Place of Publication:

[Baltimore and London] : Johns Hopkins Press, [1971]

Summary:

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 in a new softcover edition. In The Falling Sickness, Owsei Temkin presents the history of epilepsy in Western civilization from ancient times to the beginnings of modern neurology. His extensive use of quotations from original sources and his restraint in the use of modern medical terminology enables the author to afford unusual insight into what past generations saw, thought, and expressed. Yet this is also a developmental history of the disease and as such is guided by modern interests even where older opinions are contrary to those of the present day.

Contents:

Part 1 Antiquity

I. Epilepsy: the Sacred Disease 3

1. The Concept of the Sacred Disease 3

2. The Magicians 10

3. Sacred Disease and Epilepsy 15

4. Physicians and Magic 21

II. Epilepsy in Ancient Medical Science 28

1. The Clinical Picture 31

c. Aura 37

d. The Epileptic Attack 40

e. The Course of the Disease 42

f. Prognosis and Complications 44

g. Diagnosis 47

h. Differential Diagnosis 49

2. Theories 51

a. The Fifth and Fourth Centuries 51

b. Third Century B.C.

Second Century A.D. 56

c. Galen 60

3. Treatment 65

a. Indications and Aim of Treatment 65

b. Methods and Theory of Treatment 66

c. The Problem of Pharmacology 78

Part 2 The Middle Ages

III. Epilepsy: The Falling Sickness 85

a. Possession 86

b. Lunacy 92

c. The Falling Evil 96

2. Cure and Prevention 102

a. Magic and Superstition 102

b. Saints and Relics 109

c. Infection 114

IV. Medieval Medical Theories 118

1. Early Middle Ages 118

2. Scholasticism 121

Part 3 The Renaissance

V. Theological, Philosophical, and Social Aspects 137

1. The Theological Debate 138

a. The Debate on Possession 138

b. The Debate on Witchcraft 141

c. The Debate on Magic and Superstitious Treatment 144

2. The Epileptic as a Prophet 148

a. Prophesying Epileptics 148

b. Epilepsy and Prophetic Trance 154

3. Some Social Aspects 161

a. Great Epileptics 161

b. Beggars and Cheats 164

4. Paracelsus and Hermetic Medicine 170

a. Paracelsus 170

b. Allegories 177

c. Van Helmont 181

VI. Broadening Experience and Changing Theory 184

1. New Observations 184

2. New Theories 195

Part 4 The Great Systems and the Period of Enlightenment

VII. The Great Systems 205

1. Iatrochemists and Iatrophysicists 205

2. Animism and Eclecticism 213

VIII. The Enlightenment 220

1. The Fight against the Supernatural and Occult 220

a. The Rationalistic Interpretation of Possession 220

b. The Revolt against the Occult 227

c. The Purging of Therapy 232

2. Pathology and Nosology 241

a. Pathology 241

b. Nosology 247

Part 5 The Nineteenth Century (1800-1861)

IX. First Period: 1800-1833 255

1. The Hospitalization of Epileptics 255

b. Statistics 260

c. Psychiatric Studies 265

2. Anatomical Optimism and Pessimism 271

X. Second Period: 1833-1861 278

1. The Reflex Theory 278

2. Nosological Doubts 285

3. Therapy 291

Part 6 The Nineteenth Century

the Age of Hughlings Jackson

XI. Jackson's Forerunners 303

1. The Situation around 1860 303

2. Jacksonian Epilepsy 305

a. Bravais and Bright 305

b. Todd, Carpenter, and Wilks 311

3. The Dreamy State (Psychomotor Epilepsy, Temporal Lobe Epilepsy) 316

a. Morel, Griesinger, Falret 316

b. Herpin 324

XII. John Hughlings Jackson 328

XIII. The End of the Falling Sickness? 347

1. Idiopathic Epilepsy 347

2. Epilepsy and Hysteria 351

3. Crime, Religion, and the Epileptic Character 359

4. The World of the Epileptic 370.

Notes:

Includes half title page.

Preface to the second edition on pages vii-xii.

Edition statement from title page and front cover.

Composed in Baskerville text with Univers display by Jones Composition Company.

"Copyright ©1945, 1971 by the Johns Hopkins Press"; title page verso.

Includes bibliographical references (pages 399-443) and index (pages 445-467).

Local Notes:

Kislak Center copy gifted by Dr. Mark B. Adams in 2018.

ISBN:

0801812119

9780801812118

0801848490

9780801848490

OCLC:

208839

Online:

Publisher description