Volume 19, 2007 - Brown University

38 Eleanor Thomas
his idea of the phlegmatic origin of epilepsy. Phlegm must be the agent which
causes the symptoms of epilepsy, through its disruption of air, the brain’s
medium. According to Hippocrates’ logic a model and an understanding of the
four humors, are all that are necessary to properly treat illness. If a physician
understands the cause of disease in a patient, he can then easily inhibit the presumed
cause of the disease and eliminate its symptoms. He is careful, however,
to point out in his treatise that cases of epilepsy that have become habitual are
not curable. He admits that there are limits to what a physician can do, but in
general treatment according to his model will result in successful alleviation of
the symptoms of diseases of the mind.
The unity of Hipprocates’ explanation of the causes of epilepsy in The
Sacred Disease is remarkable. He is able to integrate various mental disorders,
humoral theories of disease, and brain function in order to create a model which
completely explains the progression and pathophysiology of epilepsy, as well as
the prognosis of patients suffering from it. He is able to use his own
observations and deductive logic to infer how the brain might work. Although
one purpose of The Sacred Disease is to discredit and refute superstitious and
magical ideas concerning epilepsy, it also contains a remarkably logical,
harmonious theory of physiology and pathophysiology.
References
Finger, Stanley. 2000. Minds Behind the Brain. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Herodotus. 1942. The Persian Wars, trans. George Rawlinson. New York: Random
House.
Hippocrates. 1923. The Sacred Disease. Trans. W.H.S. Jones. Cambridge: Harvard University
Press.
Jones, W.H.S. 1923. Hippocrates. Hippocrates. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Pagel, Walter. 1939. “Prognosis and Diagnosis: A Comparison of Ancient and Modern
Medicine,” Journal of the Warburg Institute, Vol. 2 (1939), 382-298.
Temkin, Owsei. 1945. The Falling Sickness. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins Press.