What really makes us grateful for modern medicine is learning about not-so-modern medicine. In the 16th and 17th centuries, epilepsy was beginning to be seen as a disease instead of demonic possession, but there was still very little that could be done about it. Known by many names, such as grand mal, the sacred disease, crank, and the falling sickness, epilepsy was studied, but little understood.
The natural causes of the disease were debated extensively. Various explanations were proposed including rising vapours within the body; black bile and other bad humours; elemental similarities to thunderstorms; and excessive pride (leading to a fall).
The possible cures for the falling sickness were also wide-ranging and varied in their availability. The hermetic physician, Paracelsus, recommended mistletoe, blood from a decapitated man, pieces of the human skull, preparations of gold and coral or spirit of vitriol (now known to contain ether). Another treatment, based on the doctrine of signatures (which used herbs which resembled particular body parts to heal those parts), was powdered soap-wort seed, offered for three months at the time of the new moon; this was a substance which frothed when rubbed in water.
Adding to the difficulty was the tendency to accuse a practitioner of witchcraft if a patient actually got better. Read about the early modern era of epilepsy at the British National Archives. -via Strange Company
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