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Social Control and the Sane Epileptic, 1850-1950

Susan L. Lannon, RN, MA

Arch Neurol. 2002;59:1031-1036.

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text and any section headings.

INTRODUCTION

In 1950, Maurice Walsh¹ proposed that certain medical terms created a tyranny over individuals who were diagnosed as having the conditions they named. These diagnoses evoked an immediate and a negative response from the public. Among these terms was epilepsy. Throughout history, their often bizarre and misunderstood seizure-related behaviors resulted in people with epilepsy being described as possessed by demons, mystic, insane, degenerate, and defective. Even after epilepsy was determined to be a neurological disorder, its stigma persisted, and numerous attempts were made to segregate people with epilepsy from society. One means society used to segregate or remove any unwanted segment of the population from everyday life was to impose social controls on them.² Societal-endorsed methods of control of people with epilepsy were particularly oppressive from 1850 to 1950. Among the methods used to segregate them from society were commitment to asylums for the . . . [Full Text of this Article]

ASYLUMS

THE EPILEPTIC COLONY

LEGAL SOCIAL CONTROL AND EUGENIC LAWS

From the Department of Neurology, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.