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That the treatment was as nearly successful as it was is perhaps encouraging to the hope that suitable cases under favorable conditions might be cured. The next case is one where the diagnosis lay between hysteria and epilepsy. The symptoms were as follows: The patient had attacks in which she became unconscious, gasped, and spittle ran from her mouth. She also bit her tongue.
The honest use of the mortuary statistics of a large town is no easy matter, and I must therefore ask that I may be supposed to have taken every possible precaution in order not to exaggerate the reality of a great evil. Certain diseases, such as apoplexy, palsy, epilepsy, St.
Vesey to take him back; and Denmark served him faithfully, with no trouble from epilepsy, for twenty years, travelling all over the world with him, and learning to speak various languages. In 1800 he drew a prize of fifteen hundred dollars in the East Bay-street Lottery, with which he bought his freedom from his master for six hundred dollars, much less than his market value.
And having perceived all three to participate in the common superstition, derived from Babylon and the East, traceable in history to its human source, existing still in Turkey and Abyssinia, the superstition which mistakes mania, epilepsy, and other forms of disease, for possession by devils; should I have shown love of truth, or obstinacy in error, had I refused to judge freely of these three writers, as of any others who tell similar marvels? or was it my duty to resolve, at any rate and against evidence, to acquit them of the charge of superstition and misrepresentation?
In the case of epilepsy, at any rate, it is easy to imagine that the passage of some specific organism through the reproductive cells may take place, as in the case of syphilis. We are, however, entirely ignorant of the nature of the former disease.
When he saw me returning to him so soon, he said, 'I see thou hast come back to me forthwith and only too soon. I answered, 'Patience, and cut short this foolish connection and shake off the pre-occupation wherein thou art, for there hath befallen that which may bring about the loss of thy life and good. Now when he heard this, he was troubled and strongly moved; and he said to me, 'O my brother, tell me what hath happened. Replied I, 'O my lord, know that such and such things have happened and thou art lost without recourse, if thou abide in this thy house till the end of the day. At this, he was confounded and his soul well-nigh departed his body, but he recovered himself and said to me, 'What shall I do, O my brother, and what counsel hast thou to offer. Answered I, 'My advice is that thou take what thou canst of thy property and whom of thy slaves thou trustest, and flee with us to a land other than this, ere this very day come to an end. And he said, 'I hear and I obey. So he rose, confused and dazed like one in epilepsy, now walking and now falling, and took what came under his hand.
He was brought home and put to bed, and next day was seized with a severe fit of epilepsy. For weeks his life was in danger, and when at last he recovered strength of body, his mind remained in a state of moroseness that at times bordered on insanity. He became a fierce hater of women, and the chief victim of his frenzy was his stepdaughter, Mary Whittaker.
Epilepsy, just the same, may occur in men gifted with the sort of transcendent ability called genius. Mohammed, Lord Byron, Dostoyevsky, Flaubert, to name a few cases, are famous instances.
It has seemed to cure many cases, but epilepsy is a very uncertain disease, and there is hardly anything which has not been supposed to cure it. Dr. Copland cites many authorities in its favor, most especially Lombard's cases. Dr. James Jackson says that relief of epilepsy is not to be attained by any medicine with which he is acquainted, but by diet.
At night he would wander in his speech, and at such times he would constantly be calling for his little sister Emma; he would cry out and weep, and his features would stiffen and his eyes would almost start out of his head till he looked like one possessed. The doctors said that it was epilepsy. They treated him in every possible way. It was all of no avail.
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