Epilepsy - What is it.........?

Wednesday, February 18, 2009

Understanding Epilepsy And its Homeopathic Answer.....

Epilepsy

Epilepsy is a brain disorder that causes people to have recurring seizures. The seizures happen when clusters of nerve cells, or neurons, in the brain send out the wrong signals. People may have strange sensations and emotions or behave strangely. They may have violent muscle spasms or lose consciousness.

Epilepsy means a tendency to have seizures and is a symptom of brain disease rather than disease itself.

However the recurrence rate is about 70% after first attack.

Ancient Belief About Epilepsy:

Epilepsy, the so-called Sacred Disease, was known as the disease of Hercules because Hercules reportedly suffered from epilepsy when he went mad. Julius Caesar is believed to have had epilepsy. Alexander the Great, Socrates, Caligula, and Saul, king of the Israelites, may also have suffered seizures.

Derek Collins, in Magic in the Ancient Greek World, devotes much of his second chapter to the Sacred Disease and its magical or divine connections. When Hercules suffered an epileptic seizure, Lussa, a goddess of madness, entered his body, according to the ancient stories. This made epilepsy a type of possession. Purification was the preferred method of treating such defilement as possession, although not all possessions were considered dirty: Apollo "possessed" the Pythian priestess when she uttered her predictions; however, the Pythian priestess was simply enhanced, not defiled.

In the third chapter of his book on ancient Greek magic, Collins quotes Plutarch about infant exposure, the practice of letting an unwanted infant lie outside in the elements and so die. Plutarch says the Spartans bathed infants in wine in order to induce epileptic convulsions, if the newborns were so inclined. If they convulsed, they would be exposed at the foot of a mountain at the Apothetai (the exposure place).

Famous Quotes About Epilepsy:

"There is no evidence... that either epileptic seizures or a predisposition to epilepsy is capable of engendering exceptional talents. Rather, the occasional concurrence of epilepsy and genius most likely reflects the probability that a common disorder will at times afflict people with uncommon potential."

"Sometimes the same things that cause epilepsy result in giftedness. If you damage an area [of the brain] early enough in life, the corresponding area on the other side has a chance to overdevelop."

"A temporal lobe focus in the superior individual may spark an extraordinary search for that entity we alternately call truth or beauty."