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Show tences, and incantations were supposed sup-posed to work a cure. Today, recently re-cently discovered medicines, the venom from serpents, proper foods, and mild exercise, do much to aid these sufferers, reducing ! the frequency and violence of the attacks. both types of this disorder know when an attack is coming on, because be-cause they have spots before their eyes, fullness and ringing in their ears, twitching of the muscles, especially those of the eyelids and mouth. Many of the greatest men and women in the world have been epileptics, epi-leptics, among them being Joan of Arc, Napoleon, Richelieu, Julius Caesar, Nero and many saints of both sexes. In olden days leaves were applied ap-plied to the foreheads of sufferers, then thrown into the wind, which was supposed to carry away the devil causing the attack. Later primitive men made clay images, on which they outlined the seat of the illness, thereby transferring it to the statue. St. John, the Evangelist, in the guise of a beggar asking alms, supposedly approached Edward the Confessor, who handed him ( some coins, in exchange for which the holy man gave him a ring, assuring the king it would cure all sufferers from this cause, provided pro-vided they were touched with it. This mythical story was responsible responsi-ble for the so-called epilepsy cramr ring worn by thousands of victims of this malady. The French used emerald set rings to prevent this scourge falling fall-ing on them. Water, blessed and poured over the face as a prayei was repeated, was also reputed to be a sure cure. In the middle ages epilepsy was considered con-tageous, con-tageous, and those upon whom it laid its oppressive hand were isolated iso-lated in hospitals located on the outskirts of cities. Numerous charms were sole which presumably possessed curative cur-ative properties, but all of then were valueless. In some countries meaningless words, gibbered sen- THE byWEAMMNEAUUHMIX Epilepsy Cavemen for many centuries suffered from "the falling sickness" sick-ness" as it was called, because its victims usually collapsed. Crude drawings on the sides of their primitive habitations verify this. The earliest writers on medicine repeatedly referred to this tragic illness and believed it was caused by the entrance of demons from the underworld into the bodies of men and women, which might only be driven from their human tenements ten-ements by exorcism performed by a cleric. No nation, no race, no sex and no age has ever been free from this hideous infirmity. It is unquestionably due to a spontaneous discharge of a motor nerve force and is characterized by periodic convulsive attacks on its victims, which vary in intensity and duration. Undoubtedly it is often hereditary. This week I attended at-tended a young married man who had been free from these attacks for ten years. A few days previous to his call, he had been resting on the sand at a famous Atlantic coast bathing beach and had a spell lasting five or more minutes. While talking with me he had another an-other attack. His grandfather and his father both had been subject to similar spells, as had other relatives on his father's side of the family. There is another type known as Jacksonian epilepsy, so named after the brain surgeon who discovered dis-covered it. It usually results from an injury to the skull which leaves scar tissue over the covering of the brain. By lifting the depressed bone, freeing the adhesions and removing the tumor, the patient usually is restored to normalcy. In the other type of epilepsy there is no organic change visible in the motor cells even under microscopic examination. Ordinarily victims of |