A Case Study of Eight Epileptic Adolescents Who Were Observed in the Adolescent Ward of Kings County Hospital, Division of Psychiatry

John P Vesey, Fordham University

Abstract

For thousands of years epilepsy has presented the peoples of the earth with major problems of a medical and social nature. It is a disease of record since 400 B.C., when Hippocrates, the father of medicine, wrote that he believed the root of this strange illness could be found in the brain, and that the superstitious concepts prevalent at the time were only a shelter for ignorance and fraudulent practices. Epilepsy has manifested itself in every age and in every society and but few people have escaped contact with it in one form or another, if even only hearing the term. Men of all ages and all professions have been concerned with the problem of epilepsy and attempts to solve this problem have been made by kings, magicians, theologians, philosophers and physicians. Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes once wrote: "If I wished to show a student the difficulties of getting the truth from medical experience, I would give him the history of epilepsy to read."

Subject Area

Social research|Mental health|Clinical psychology|Social work

Recommended Citation

Vesey, John P, "A Case Study of Eight Epileptic Adolescents Who Were Observed in the Adolescent Ward of Kings County Hospital, Division of Psychiatry" (1956). ETD Collection for Fordham University. AAI30670866.
https://research.library.fordham.edu/dissertations/AAI30670866

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