Images of the epileptic fit (I)

One of the significant advantages of modern medical documentation is that, with the aid of film technology, it is possible to record a sequence of movements precisely and to replay it often in a user-defined manner. Thus today it is easily possible, for example, to film an epileptic episode and, by playing it back repeatedly and also in slow motion, to obtain a precise analysis, to archive it, and to show it, e.g. for the purposes of demonstration, education and training.

This type of film technology was naturally not available in previous times; documentation took place by means of the written word and through drawings and paintings. As a rule, these illustrations made with pencil or brush showed only a moment, a short, strictly limited period. Occasionally, one can also encounter representations that illustrate a sequence in time, for example, the (anonymous) illustrations shown here from the novel "Lucilla" (original title: "Poor Miss Finch") by the best-selling English author Wilkie Collins (see the chapter "Poetry III" from this series of articles).

In the background of the picture there a (male) figure can be seen in four postures that follow one another in sequence - these progress from upright to lying down via two intermediate tilted postures. This sequences from vertical to horizontal is made impressively clear by means of the ochre-coloured bar.

The passage in the text of the novel to which this drawing refers confirms this assumption: It portrays the collapse occurring in a grand-mal fit, which the chief male protagonist of the events, Oscar, experiences within the context of a post-traumatic epilepsy.

This person, Oscar, is also portrayed in the foreground of the picture as a well-dressed younger man, arm in arm with Lucilla, his bride. The blue colour of Oscar’s skin is striking. It also conveys to us a very interesting scenic detail from the science of epilepsy during the period described in the novel (second half of the 19^th century): Although at the time of the story, the discovery of potassium bromide as the first objectively effective anti-epileptic agent had already taken place some years previously (1857), other substances were still being used to treat epilepsy, above all away from inpatient establishments, as supposed, but actually ineffective, inhibitors of seizures. One example is the compound silver nitrate (argentum nitricum), which had already been used as an anti-epileptic by Paracelsus (1493-1541). At the time in which the novel is set, it had already long been known that one of the side effects of this substance is to colour the skin a very dark blue. However an epilepsy specialist of the period (Wittmaack) blithely made the following comment about this concomitant effect of silver nitrate: "If silver really cures epilepsy, why should it not be better to be a healthy half-Moor than a sad and ill white person?"

Unfortunately, however, silver dose not cure epilepsy! When using it, one could actually count only on having the side effect of turning the skin blue, but never on an anti-epileptic effect. Thus it was with Oscar: The livid colour of his skin posed a grave aesthetic problem - although not for his bride! She, namely, as shown by the unnatural, strangely empty eyes in the picture, totally blind! It is therefore understandable that Oscar had very mixed feelings about the eye operation that would enable Lucilla to see again - however that is another story.