In ancient times, people didn’t understand diseases and what caused them. So they often behaved very cruelly to victims of certain diseases. People who had epilepsy in the Middle Ages were thought of as lunatics, or bewitched! Yet did you know that many great people and many geniuses were epileptic? Among them were the Duke of Wellington, Richard Wagner, Vincent van Gogh, and Louis Hector Berlioz.

Epilepsy is a disease of the nervous system. People with epilepsy have sudden spells during which they have spasms called convulsions after which they may become unconscious or fall into a coma.

Doctors cannot yet explain exactly what happens and what causes the convulsions. It seems that the normal patterns of activity of the brain become disrupted for a short time. The brain tissue in these people is sensitive to chemical changes, and when some sort of change takes place, the brain responds by sending out discharges that cause the convulsions.

A person has to be predisposed to epilepsy to have such reactions, because other people may undergo the same chemical changes and nice have convulsions. There is a possibility that it is hereditary.

An epileptic attack may be caused by a head injury, a high fever, tumors, or scars in the brain substance, disturbances in the blood sum ply, and so on. Injury to the brain may result in epilepsy.

Epilepsy, however, has nothing to do with mental development. A person who has epilepsy should be considered a normal individual, not an invalid or some sort of outcast. Epileptics can lead normal lives go to school, work, marry, and raise families.

Medical science has developed drugs to prevent attacks, and to control them when they do occur. These medicines are usually given to people over a period of many years, or even for a lifetime, so that they lead normal, happy lives.