CHAPTER IV. CURE OF EPILEPSY.
OF remedies, whatever is great and most powerful is needed
for epilepsy, so as to find an escape not only from a painful
affection, and one dangerous at each attack, but from the disgust
and opprobrium of this calamity. For it appears to me,
that if the patients who endure such sufferings were to look at
one another in the paroxysms, they would no longer submit to
live. But the want of sensibility and of seeing conceals from
every one what is dreadful and disgusting in his own case. It
is best that the method of cure should follow the alleviation of
nature, when, with the changes of age, she changes greatly
the man. For if the diet akin to the ailment, and on which
the disease subsisted, be changed, the disease no longer seizes
the man, but takes its departure along with that in which it
delighted.
1
If, then, it seize on the head, it settles there; to it, therefore,
we are to do those things which have been described by
me under cephalæa, regarding the abstraction of blood (and
also the purgings) from the veins at the elbow, the straight
vein at the forehead, and by cupping; but the abstraction is
not to be carried the length of deliquium animi; for deliquium
has a tendency to induce the disease; we are to open
all the ordinary arteries before and behind the ears, and we are
also to practise purgings, which are more potent than all these
things, by the purgative
hiera and those medicines which
draw off phlegm from the head; but the medicines should be
particularly powerful, for the habit of such persons renders
them tolerant of pains, and their goodness of spirits and good
hopes render them strong in endurance. It is necessary, also,
to apply heat to the head, for it is effectual. In the first
place, we must perforate the bone as far as the diploe, and
then use cerates and cataplasms until the meninx separate
from the bone. The exposed bones are to be perforated with
the trepan if still any small portion prevent its spontaneous
removal, when the meninx there is found black and thickened;
and when, having gone through the process of putrefaction
and cleansing under the bold treatment of the physician,
the wound comes to complete cicatrization, the patients escape
from the disease. In all cases we are to use rubefacient applications
to the head; namely, the common ones, as described by
me formerly; and a still more powerful one is that from cantharides,
but for three days before using it the patient must
drink milk as a protection of the bladder, for cantharides are
very injurious to the bladder. These are the remedies when
the head is the part affected.
But if the cause be seated in the middle parts, and if these
induce the disease (this, however, very rarely happens, for, as
in a mighty ailment, the middle parts of the body rather sympathise
with the head, which is the origin of the disease), but
however it may be, we must open the vein at the elbow in
these cases also; for the flow by it is from the viscera. But
such patients, more than the others, are to be purged with the
hiera, cneoron,
2 and the
granum cnidium,
3 for these are phlegmagogues.
But the most suitable remedy in these cases is
cupping. Of epithemes and cataplasms the components are
well known, and it would be superfluous to describe them on
all occasions, except in so far as to know the powers of them;
namely, that by such means we must attenuate, promote exhalation,
and render the secretions and perspirations healthy.
We are also to use digestive, heating, desiccant, and diuretic
articles, both in food and in medicine. But the best of all
things is castor, taken frequently during the month in honeyed-water,
and the compound medicines which possess the same
powers, as the compound medicine from vipers, and the still
more complex one of Mithridates, and also that of Vestinus;
for these things promote digestion, form healthy juices, and
are diuretic; for whatever simple medicines you could describe
are contained in these powerful compositions -- cinnamon.
cassia, the leaves of melabathrum, pepper, and all the varieties
of seseli; and which of the most potent medicines will you not
find in them? It is told, that the brain of a vulture, and the
heart of a raw cormorant, and the domestic weasel, when
eaten, remove the disease; but I have never tried these things.
However, I have seen persons holding a cup below the wound
of a man recently slaughtered, and drinking a draught of the
blood! O the present, the mighty necessity, which compels
one to remedy the evil by such a wicked abomination! And
whether even they recovered by this means no one could tell
me for certain. There is another story of the liver of a man
having been eaten. However, I leave these things to be
described by those who would bear to try such means.
It is necessary to regulate the diet, in respect to everything
that is to be done either by others or by the patient himself.
Now nothing must be omitted, nor anything unnecessarily
done; and more especially we must administer everything
which will do the slightest good, or even that will do no
harm; for many unseemly sights, sounds, and tastes, and multitudes
of smells, are tests of the disease. Everything, therefore,
is to be particularly attended to. Much sleep induces
fatness, torpor, and mistiness of the senses, but moderate sleep
is good. An evacuation of the bowels, especially of flatulence
and phlegm, is very good after sleep. Promenades long, straight,
without tortuosities, in a well ventilated place, under trees of
myrtle and laurel, or among acrid and fragrant herbs, such as
calamint, penny-royal, thyme, and mint; so much the better
if wild and indigenous, but if not, among cultivated; in
these places, prolonged gestation, which also should be
straight. It is a good thing to take journeys, but not by a
river side, so that he may not gaze upon the stream (for the
current of a river occasions vertigo), nor where he may see
anything turned round, such as a rolling-top, for he is too weak
to preserve the animal spirits (
pneuma) steady, which are,
therefore, whirled about in a circle, and this circular motion is
provocative of vertigo and of epilepsy. After the gestation,
a gentle walk, then rest so as to induce tranquillity of the
agitation created by the gestation. After these, the exercises
of the arms, their extremities being rubbed with a towel
made of raw flax. Not much oil to be used in the inunction.
The friction to be protracted, and harder than usual for condensation,
since most of them are bloated and fat: the head
to be rubbed in the middle of the process, while the patient
stands erect. The exercises of the neck and shoulders,
chironomy, and the others mentioned by me under the
treatment of Vertigo, with sufficient fulness of detail; only
the exercises should be sharper, so as to induce sweat and
heat, for all these attenuate. During the whole of his life he
should cultivate a keen temper without irascibility.
All kinds of food derived from gross pulse are bad; but we
are to give frumentaceous things, the drier sorts of bread,
washed alica, and the drinks prepared from them. The
medicines added for relish the same as before; but there
should be more of acrid things, such as pepper, ginger, and
lovage. Sauces of vinegar and cumin are both pleasant and useful.
From fleshes in particular the patient is to be entirely restricted,
or at least during the cure; for the restoration, those things
are to be allowed which are naturally light, such as all sorts of
winged animals, with the exception of the duck, and such as
are light in digestion, such as hares, swines' feet, and pickled
fish, after which thirst is good. A white, thin, fragrant, and
diuretic wine is to be drunk in small quantity. Of boiled
pot-herbs, such as are possessed of acrid powers, attenuate and
prove diuretic, as the cabbage, asparagus, and nettle; of raw,
the lettuce in the season of summer. The cucumber and ripe
melon are unsuitable to a strong man; but certain persons may
have just a tasting of them. But being of a cold and humid
nature, much of them is bad. The seasonable use may be
granted of the green fig and the grape. Promenades; after
these, recreation to dispel grief.
Passion is bad, as also sexual enjoyment; for the act itself
bears the symptoms of the disease. Certain physicians have
fallen into a mistake respecting coition; for seeing that the
physical change to manhood produces a beneficial effect, they
have done violence to the nature of children by unseasonable
coition, as if thus to bring them sooner to manhood. Such
persons are ignorant of the spontaneous law of nature by
which all cures are accomplished; for along with every age
she produces that which is proper for it in due seasons. At a
given time there is the maturity of semen, of the beard, of
hoary hairs; for on the one hand what physician could alter
Nature's original change in regard to the semen, and, on the
other, the appointed time for each? But they also offend
against the nature of the disease; for being previously injured
by the unseasonableness of the act, they are not possessed of
seasonable powers at the proper commencement of the age
for coition.
The patients ought to reside in hot and dry places, for the
disease is of a cold and humid nature.
