This book explores the emergence of epilepsy as a purely neurological disorder, in the second half of the nineteenth century. It focuses on the world’s first neurological hospital, the National Hospital for the Paralysed and Epileptic in London, and on its leading figure, John Hughlings Jackson (1835-1911). Through an analysis of the National Hospital’s medical records and a historical account of the course of epilepsy until our time, this book presents the nineteenth-century turn towards the scientific study of the human brain and the various political, social, ideological and epistemological implications of this major change. In spite of the recent trend of describing the history of mental illness, mental patients and psychiatric institutions, so far, neurology, epilepsy and epileptic patients have largely remained outside the scope of social historians, historians of medicine and social scientists. This book has the ambition to fill that gap.

Aimed at researchers and clinicians, this journal of neurology balances studies in neurological science with practical clinical articles.

Excerpt from A Statistical Inquiry Into the Nature and Treatment of Epilepsy The science of medicine is to be advanced by the careful collection of well-recorded facts, rather than by general statements or unsupported assertions. No inquiry thus conducted with scientific precision can fail to be without value, and to add a mite to that store of positive knowledge from which must emanate all hopes of progress for the healing art. Our acquaintance with the nature of epilepsy is as yet in its infancy, and although much valuable practical information has been put on record regarding this disease, it is believed that the following contribution may not be useless in either confirming or questioning previous conclusions. The clinical aspects of epilepsy are especially difficult to investigate with exactitude. The physician, as a rule, is not himself a witness to the chief phenomena characteristic of the disease. He is therefore compelled, in most cases, to trust to the statements of the patient and his friends for their description, and even when the cross-examination is conducted with the greatest care, there are many points impossible to ascertain with certainty. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.