title: Hallmarks in the history of epilepsy: epilepsy in antiquity.
abstract: The purpose of this article is to highlight the hallmarks of epilepsy as a disease and symptom during antiquity and especially during Ancient Greece and Rome. A thorough study of texts, medical books, and reports along with a review of the available literature in PubMed was undertaken. Observations on epilepsy date back to the medical texts of the Assyrians and Babylonians, almost 2000 years B.C. Considered initially as a divine malady or demonic possession, epilepsy was demythologized by the Father of Medicine, Hippocrates, who was the first to set in dispute its divine origin. Physicians in the early post-Hippocratic era did not make any important contribution regarding the mechanisms of epileptic convulsions, but contributed mainly in the field of nosology and systemization of symptoms.
authors: Office for the Study of History of Hellenic Naval Medicine, Naval Hospital of Athens, Athens, Greece. mayiork@med.uoa.gr
authors: Emmanouil
authors: E
authors: Magiorkinis
authors: Kalliopi
authors: K
authors: Sidiropoulou
authors: Aristidis
authors: A
authors: Diamantis
mesh_terms: D004827:Epilepsy / Q000266:history*; D049690:History, Ancient; D006801:Humans