How was epilepsy viewed and treated in the 19th century, and were restraints ever used on sufferers during a f

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boy muttentrumpet sure has a good unbiased view on disability huh? now to your question, people with epilepsy were treated in several different ways, as some have already said many were treated as though possesed by demons, this was because, the people who mainly had epilepsy that were known as such and not shut away by their families were poor people and depended on church charities to help with health care, of course the many ministers and priests in their ignorance of the condition thought it could not be something caused by god who created men perfectly in his image, so it must be something created by satan, hence the locking away of sufferers of epilepsy, in london the main hospital that took care of people with all types of mental illness was the bethlehem royal hospital, popularly known as "bedlam" which is where the meaning for crazy situations comes from ie "it's bedlam in here tonight". in later times it was recognised more as an illness and epileptics slowly became regarded as mentally ill rather then posessed, and were treated differently, however it seems that even today people in their ignorance still treat epileptics as insane in some way, in fact i myself when having a grand mal seizure have on several occasions been accused of being a drunk, a junkie and many other names, fortunately ive grown up with epilepsy, and ive come to accept its just a part of my life, and anyway as far as i see it, im only epileptic when having a seizure, so muttentrumpet, your statement about us all being mad isn't accurate, yes some epileptics are violent, but then again so are some non-epileptics, in fact many more non-epileptics than sufferers are violent to their spouse/partner, so you might want to re-think your opinions. So as i said, it's not posession, nor is it insanity or mental illness, it is a neurological condition which takes many forms, hope thats answered things a bit for you tc and have fun.

It was treated mainly as if it were a demonic posession and sufferers were treated as less than human!
The following site gives a good historical view of epilepsy from 400BC!

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How was epilepsy viewed and treated in the 19th century, and were restraints ever used on sufferers during a f

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