This electronic edition is funded by the National Library of Medicine History of Medicine Division. This text has been proofread to a high degree of accuracy. It was converted to electronic form using Data Entry. (Medical Information Disclaimer:
It is not the intention of NLM to provide specific medical advice but rather to provide users with information to better understand their health and their diagnosed disorders. Specific medical advice will not be provided, and NLM urges you to consult with a qualified physician for diagnosis and for answers to your personal questions.)
OF ARETÆUS, THE CAPPADOCIAN. CAUSES AND SYMPTOMS OF ACUTE DISEASE
BOOK I.
CHAPTER V. ON THE PAROXYSM OF EPILEPTICS
[p. 244]
wheel, or a turning top. But sometimes the smell of heavy
odours, such as of the gagate stone (jet), makes them fall
down. In these cases, the ailment is fixed in the head, and
from it the disorder springs; but, in others, it arises also from
the nerves remote from the head, which sympathise with the
primary organ. Wherefore the great fingers of the hands, and the
great toes of the feet are contracted; pain, torpor, and trembling
succeed, and a rush of them to the head takes place. If the
mischief spread until it reach the head, a crash takes place,
in these cases, as if from the stroke of a piece of wood, or of
stone; and, when they rise up, they tell how they have been
maliciously struck by some person. This deception occurs to
those who are attacked with the ailment for the first time.
But those to whom the affection has become habitual, whenever
the disease recurs, and has already seized the finger, or is
commencing in any part, having from experience a foreknowledge
of what is about to happen, call, from among those who
are present, upon their customary assistants, and entreat them
to bind, pull aside, and stretch the affected members; and
they themselves tear at their own members, as if pulling out
the disease; and such assistance has sometimes put off the
attack for a day. But, in many cases, there is the dread as of
a wild beast rushing upon them, or the phantasy of a shadow;
and thus they have fallen down.
In the attack, the person lies insensible; the hands are
clasped together by the spasm; the legs not only plaited
together, but also dashed about hither and thither by the
tendons. The calamity bears a resemblance to slaughtered
bulls; the neck bent, the head variously distorted, for sometimes
it is arched, as it were, forwards, so that the chin rests
upon the breast; and sometimes it is retracted to the back, as
if forcibly drawn thither by the hair, when it rests on this
shoulder or on that. They gape wide, the mouth is dry; the
tongue protrudes, so as to incur the risk of a great wound, or
