Promotional Information

"A thoroughly admirable and informative introduction to our knowledge of epilepsy in the Western world from antiquity to the early twentieth century." - American Scientist

Table of Contents

Preface to Second Edition
Preface to First Edition
Part I: Antiquity
Chapter 1. Epilepsy: The Sacred Disease
Chapter 2. Epilepsy in Ancient Medical Science
Part II: The Middle Ages
Chapter 3. Epilepsy: The Falling Sickness
Chapter 4. Medieval Medical Theories
Part III: The Renaissance
Chapter 5. Theological, Philosophical, and Social Aspects
Chapter 6. Broadening Experience and Changing Theory
Part IV: The Great Systems and the Period of Enlightenment
Chapter 7. The Great Systems
Chapter 8. The Enlightenment
Part V: The Nineteenth Century (1800–1861)
Chapter 9. First Period: 1800–1833
Chapter 10. Second Period: 1833–1861
Part VI: The Nineteenth Century – The Age of Hughlings Jackson
Chapter 11. Jackson's Forerunners
Chapter 12. John Hughlings Jackson
Chapter 13. The End of the Falling Sickness?
Epilogue
Appendix I
Appendix II
Bibliography
Index of Personal Names
Index of Subjects

About the Author

Owsei Temkin, M.D. (1902-2002), was William H. Welch Professor of the History of Medicine and director of the Institute of the History of Medicine at the Johns Hopkins University. His books include The Falling Sickness: A History of Epilepsy from the Greeks to the Beginnings of Modern Neurology, Soranus' Gynecology (translation), and Hippocrates in a World of Pagans and Christians.

Reviews

A JAMA reviewer hailed the 1945 first edition of The Falling Sickness as a reference work with 'no historical rival' which 'occupies a seperate shelf in the reviewer's Library of Fame.' A revised second edition, published in 1971, increased the bibliography from a hefty 706 references to a weighty 1120. The number of footnotes, many in French, Latin, or Greek, multiplied from 1721 to 2073! The review of the second edition deemed Tempkin's intensely researched and well-organized historical work 'magnificient'... [The 1994 publication is] a facinating study of the history of one of the world's most intriguing maladies. -- Andrew N. WilnerM.D Journal of the American Medical Association The definitive account... Detailed, meticulous, and accurate... A thoroughly admirable and informative introduction to our knowledge of epilepsy in the Western world from antiquity to the early twentieth century. American Scientist