Before Hippocrates ever wrote about Epilepsy, people thought of the disease as holy and sacred and or sent down as retribution/wrath from the gods. In the Story of Tiresias, the daughter of Saturn made the umpire blind because she was angry. But, in recompense, Saturn gave the umpire another ‘blessing’ to alleviate his daughter’s punishment; he had given him knowledge. It is not uncommon for a disability to be considered “sacred” by a society.

 

In Ancient times, Epilepsy was considered to be “sacred” and supernatural because people believed that those who suffered from it were either possessed by demons or blessed with divine messages and visions from a distant realm. Soon after the Greeks, the Romans also took a similar stance on Epilepsy. Believing that it was also caused by the demons or evil spirits and that it was contagious. If the afflicted were to touch another the demon would 'hop' onto the other physical body; unless, if the person would spit once they were touched by an epileptic. The Romans would also use the murdered blood of a gladiator to "cure" Epilepsy.

 

Many societies view Disability as a "problem" that needs fixing, a solution or even an explanation. Either way, it is something that HAS to be interpreted. Treatments have varied over the centuries, however, without modern science many of us suffering from Epilepsy would be deemed as insane or possessed by demons.

 

“Disability has served as a foundational category of cultural interpretation (and) the over determined symbolism ascribed to disabled bodies  obscure the more complex and banal reality of those who inhabited them.”