© Borgis - New Medicine 1/2013, s. 31-34
*Fabio Gabrielli1, 4, Massimo Cocchi2, Daniel Levi3, Alfredo De Filippo1, 5, Giovanni Broggi6
Historical-anthropological insights on epilepsy from hippocrates to positivism
1Scientific Committee of “Paolo Sotgiu” Institute for Research in Quantitative and Quantum Psychiatry and Cardiology, L. U. de. S. University, Lugano, Switzerland
2Scientific Director of “Paolo Sotgiu” Institute for Research in Quantitative and Quantum Psychiatry and Cardiology, L. U. de. S. University, Lugano, Switzerland
3Department of Neuroscience Applied, L. U. de. S. University, Lugano, Switzerland
4 Faculty of Human Sciences, L. U. de. S. University, Lugano, Switzerland
5Scientific Committee of Department of Legal Studies and Social, L. U. de. S. University, Lugano, Switzerland
6Scientific Director of Department of Neuroscience Applied, L. U. de. S. University, Lugano, Switzerland
Summary
The history of epilepsy appears to be mainly a progressive detachment from gods. Hippocratic medicine, for its part, stands out as the first technique (techne) able of unfettering men from the divine by explaining illness with natural and rational laws: the sacred disease, that is to say epilepsy, does not have divine characteristics, but rather a “rational structure” (physin) and “rational causes” (prophasin). Starting right from Hippocrates, we aim at providing a short history of epilepsy ending with the late-nineteenth-century perspective (especially Lombroso) which stated that epileptics didn”t have cerebral disorders or injuries, but they were characterized by a degeneration already affecting their ancestors and detectable by means of anthropometry and skull measurements.
In these few lines, we will mention some critical periods of the history of medicine with reference to epileptic phenomena, leaving your in-depth further investigation to reading of the indicated specialised texts.
Epilepsy, that the Babylonians called miqtu, “disease that makes you fall”, derives its name from the Greek verb epilambanein, “to struck suddenly”, “to take by surprise”.
People were so concerned with its abrupt, violent, sudden, magmatic onset that they saw in epilepsy the characteristics of the gods, of the sacred dimension: caducus, sacer, astralis, demoniacus.
The Babylonians believed that the medical treatment should be practised by a priest through purifications and specific sacrifices: the objective, in particular for mental illness, was to trigger a cathartic, “psychotherapeutic” effect (1).
The epileptic was thought to be a victim of evil forces, to such an extent that the Hammurabi”s Code (1780 BC) forbade epileptics to marry; furthermore, holes were drilled in the epileptics” skulls in order to make the “wicked demon” go away (to learn more about other purification practices and “sacred removal” of epilepsy in ancient times (2, 3).
To summarise, the epileptic was considered as a type of possessed person to be left in the care of a doctor-priest, a privileged guardian of the sacred (the word “sacred” derives from an Indo-European root which means “separated”: a both alluring and repelling power, later defined as “divine”, that religion tries to “rejoin”, re-ligere, by means of practices and rituals, in sacred places ruled by priests who mediate with its immense force (4).
Due to Hippocrates, the thematic perspective changes completely: men relinquish the sacred to rely on the medical technique. Hereafter you will find the excerpt from the Sacred disease: “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.”(§1, translated by Adams).
The above Hippocratic excerpt represents paradigmatically the founding moment of the human medicine and its emancipation from the Divine (5).
So, medicine is the original form of the technique – in the Cratylus, 414 b-c, Plato says that the term “technique” comes from hexis nou, which means “be the master and make use of one”s own mind”- that frees itself from the divine: the sacred disease (this is the phrase used to indicate epilepsy in ancient times), does not have divine characteristics but rather it has a “rational structure”(physin) and “rational causes” (prophasin).
Epilepsy thus becomes the human, deeply human, pathological archetype, the rational motivation.
Thus epilepsy becomes the human, deeply human, pathological archetype, the rational motivation, clue-by-clue procedure, guesswork, processes involving attempts and confutations (Alcmaeon of Croton used the phrase tekmairestha) (6-8).
The medical art, starting from epilepsy, no longer believes that gods control the space and time where the natural life of man takes place, not even the ancient philosophy of physis which is considered as the principle embracing and sustaining everything (just think about Anaximander, DK 12A15) can do that, and let alone the myth, completely projected towards the past, seen as the founding act of the human. Only technical knowledge is capable of that.
This future-oriented knowledge (prognosis), finds in technique the new Episteme, the Rationale that embodies itself into experience in order to be tested, checked so as to position itself as praxis (5, 9).
In the normal practice, the practitioner does not just occasionally act, but establishes a rational path (prophasin), aimed at harmony leading to health.
In a word, epilepsy has natural causes and so it must be treated with rational techniques aimed at restoring “the right proportion”, the right balance.
According to Hippocratic texts, illness originates from an imbalance between the external environment (weather, air, beverages, food) and the internal environment, that is the human body: the unbalance on bodily “humours” (10); on the humoral unbalance of epilepsy, cf. also Galen, De Locis affectis, III, 9: ed. Kühn, vol. VIII, pp. 176 and sgg; on the epilepsy as the expression of the “melancholic disease”, linked to the black bile, which is one of the four humours, cf. Aristotle, Problema XXX, I).
On the concept of health as harmony, as temperance the Greek moulded one of the most important messages for modern man: man is a whole whose parts are in balance, “right in the middle”, medietas, from which Latins will derive the word “medicine”(Isidoro di Siviglia, Etimologiae od Origines; (11-13).
Galen, additionally, believed that psychic faculties, such as intelligence, memory and will, were determined by the physico-chemical conditions of the brain and, as a consequence, mental disorders were thought to originate from cerebral lesions, from the balance loss. According to Galen, in the wake of Plato”s Timaeus, the brain was the seat of the “rational soul, the starting point of nerves, the origin of voluntary movements (On the Doctrines of Hippocrates and Plato) (10).
In the Galenic conception, disease was considered as dyscrasia, humoral disorder, whereas health was eucrasia, harmony, measure, peaceful coexistence of parts.
Powyżej zamieściliśmy fragment artykułu, do którego możesz uzyskać pełny dostęp.
Mam kod dostępu
- Aby uzyskać płatny dostęp do pełnej treści powyższego artykułu albo wszystkich artykułów (w zależności od wybranej opcji), należy wprowadzić kod.
- Wprowadzając kod, akceptują Państwo treść Regulaminu oraz potwierdzają zapoznanie się z nim.
- Aby kupić kod proszę skorzystać z jednej z poniższych opcji.
Opcja #1
19 zł
Wybieram
- dostęp do tego artykułu
- dostęp na 7 dni
uzyskany kod musi być wprowadzony na stronie artykułu, do którego został wykupiony
Opcja #2
49 zł
Wybieram
- dostęp do tego i pozostałych ponad 7000 artykułów
- dostęp na 30 dni
- najpopularniejsza opcja
Opcja #3
119 zł
Wybieram
- dostęp do tego i pozostałych ponad 7000 artykułów
- dostęp na 90 dni
- oszczędzasz 28 zł
Piśmiennictwo
1. Garrison H: History of medicine. Saunders, London 1968. 2. Lennox WG, Lennox MA: Epilepsy and related disorders. Little Brown and Company, Boston e Toronto 1960. 3. Temkin O, Temkin CL: Ancient Medicine. J Hopkins, Baltimora 1967. 4. Otto R: Das Heilige. Über das Irrationale in der Idee des Göttlichen und sein Verhältnis zum Rationalen. Trewendt und Granier, Breslau 1917. 5. Galimberti U: Orme del sacro. Feltrinelli, Milano 2000. 6. Vegetti M: Introduzione, in Ippocrate. Opere, Utet, Torino 1976. 7. Vegetti M: La medicina in Platone. Il Cardo, Venezia 1995. 8. Pinkus L: A cura di, Epilessia: la malattia sacra. Borla, Roma 1992. 9. Galimberti U: Psiche e techne. L”uomo nell”età della tecnica. Feltrinelli, Milano 1999. 10. Cosmacini G: L”arte lunga. Storia della medicina dal”antichità ad oggi. Laterza, Roma-Bari 1997. 11. Cosmacini G: Lo sguardo al corpo nel pensiero medico. [In:] Dionigi I: A cura di, I classici e la scienza. Gli antichi i moderni, noi. BUR, Milano 2007, 211-219. 12. Gabrielli F: L”uomo a due dimensioni. Anima e corpo, cura e salvezza dall”Orfismo al Platone pre-metafisico. Ludes University Press, Lugano 2009. 13. Gabrielli F, Iannó M (ed.): Del limite. Pagine di filosofia e medicina. Ludes University Press, Lugano 2010. 14. Roccatagliata G: Storia della psichiatria antica. Hoepli, Milano 1973. 15. Casapullo R: Le malattie della mente nel volgarizzamento mantovano del De proprietatibus rerum di Bartolomeo Anglico (Libri I-IV, V, VII). Quaderns d”Italià 2006; 11: 29-53. 16. Foucault M: Histoire de la folie à l”age classique suivi de Mons coprs, ce papier, ce feu et La folie, l”absence d”oeuvre. Gallimard, Paris 1972. 17. Pigeaud J : Folie et cures de la folie chez les médicins de l”Antiquité gréco-romaine. La manie. Les Belles Lettres, Paris 1987. 18. De Rosa A, Vizioli R: Epilessia e cultura psichiatrica. Liguori, Napoli 1979. 19. Iannaccone S: La luna, il sangue, l”incenso: intervista sull”epilessia tra scienza e mito. Guida, Napoli 2000. 20. Temkin O: The falling sickness. J Hopkins, Baltimora 1971. 21. Jackson JH: Epilepsy and Epileptiform Convulsione. Selected Writings of John Huglings Jackson, Taylor, London 1931. 22. Taylor DC: Sexual behaviour and temporal lobe epilepsy. Arch Neurol 1969; 21: 510-516. 23. Lombroso C: L”uomo delinquente. Bocca, Torino 1924. 24. Assael BM, Avanzini G: Il male dell”anima. L”epilessia fra ‘800 e ‘900. Laterza, Roma-Bari 1997. 25. Iudice A, Murri L: Cognitività, psicologia e psicopatologia in Epilessia. Primula Multimedia, Pisa 2006. 26. Gibson M: Nati per il crimine. Cesare Lombroso e le origini della criminologia biologica. Bruno Mondadori, Milano 2004. 27. Bianchi L: Trattato di psichiatria. Pasquale, Napoli 1884.
