Epilepsy has always
been surrounded by prejudice. In Brazil in the nineteenth
century, as in other countries and times, epilepsy was nearly
always hidden behind a veil of silence. Families concealed the
disease when it afflicted one of their members. Society
commented in hushed voices when a famous writer suffered a
seizure in public. And at Rio?s Valongo slave market, it was
common for prospective buyers to pass a strong-smelling
substance under the noses of the ?merchandise? on display, a
practice harking back to Roman times when buyers would make the
slaves smell pitch to see if they were epileptics, because they
thought the strong smell would provoke a seizure in those who
suffered from epilepsy. Everybody avoided using the proper term
for the disease, preferring pleonasms such as ?the great evil",
or "Hercules? malady".
The study group that
develops the research project called Science and Prejudice: A
Social History of Epilepsy in Brazilian Medical Thinking. 1859 ?
1906 considers it important to add its efforts to those of other
groups and researchers that study the history of health and
disease, for three main reasons.
In the first place, it
appears relevant to an understanding of Brazilian medical
thinking in the nineteenth century to study how epilepsy was
analyzed and treated at that time, since physicians were mostly
in the dark about how to treat the disease. It is important to
perceive how the fumbling attempts to apply science to the
matter incorporated longstanding attitudes about the illness and
its treatment. It is also significant to identify the textual,
logical and rhetorical apparatus mobilized to lend a scientific
aura to discourse on epilepsy, since this analysis provides
elements to understand the particular subgroup of the educated
universe composed of medicine doctors.
Second, the then
current medical thinking on epilepsy, a disease whose
manifestations seem to suspend all logic, offers valuable
insights into the underpinnings of nineteenth-century
Brazilians? attitudes toward a range of issues, such as the
body, health and sickness, hygiene, morality, eating habits and
the complex relations among the body, mind and feelings. Also
called the ?falling disease?, because its sufferers fall down
and lose body control during seizures, epilepsy, at that time
associated with sexual practices, food, drink, strong emotions,
excessive exertion, temperament and even criminality, in the one
hand, unmasked science and, in the other hand, revealed how
attitudes, taboos, prejudice and stigmas, in no way scientific,
crossed the thresholds of august medical colleges, disguised as
science.
Third, it appears
significant for the field of cultural history in general, and
the history of health and disease in particular, to analyze
nineteenth-century Brazilian medical thinking on epilepsy, which
unlike other diseases such as smallpox, yellow fever,
tuberculosis and insanity, still has not been studied in Brazil
by historians.
The team conducting the
study invites all those interested to learn more about this work
to visit this web site.
