A group of physicians published The Yellow Emperor’s Classic of Internal Medicine, Huang Di Nei Ching, which outlined generalized seizures. Distinguishing themselves from the Mesopotamians, who believed spirits and gods were the cause of seizures, the Egyptians proved that seizures can be caused by cortical disruption. Documentation of epilepsy is also found in Chinese texts, dating to approximately 770-221 B.C. The case described a man with "a gaping wound in his head" and when the wound was palpated, the man would "shudder exceedingly". The Egyptians documented a case in which direct stimulation of the brain resulted in a physiologic response. It describes several accounts of epilepsy, one of which is of particular interest. Courtesy of the British Museum, London.Įvidence of epilepsy has also been found in ancient Egypt, as indicated by the Edwin Smith Surgical Papyrus written circa 1700 BC. It describes the symptoms of epilepsy and the different types of epileptic presentations. Sakikku is organized into six chapters and tablet 26 is the first in the chapter about epilepsy.
#Humanist typeface list before 1800 manual#
Tablet 26 of a series of 40 which compose the ancient Babylonian diagnostic manual entitled Sakikku which translates to "all diseases". Due to the belief that these episodes of rapid contractions were caused by evil spirits invading the body, the treatment often involved spiritual intervention. This rudimentary nomenclature further underlines that the ancient world had some understanding of epilepsy. This tablet further described terms relating to epilepsy such as miqtu (fall), hayyatu (fit), and sibtu (seizure). They also had some understanding of prognostics, as the text detailed different outcomes depending on the type of seizure, including poor outcomes in status epilepticus, as well as post-ictal states in other seizure types. In this guide, the Babylonians describe several seizure types and categorized them based on their presentation.
Nearly a millennium later, the Late Babylonians wrote a diagnostic manual entitled, Sakikku, which included texts describing epilepsy (Figure (Figure1). Epilepsy's long history can be traced back to a 4000-year-old Akkadian tablet found in Mesopotamia inscribed on it is a description of a person with "his neck turning left, hands and feet are tense, and his eyes wide open, and from his mouth froth is flowing without him having any consciousness".
0 kommentar(er)
