He'll learn the perfect skill;
The nature of each herb, to know
Which cures and which can kill."
—Dryden.
So distressing a malady as epilepsy early attracted attention, and every treatment superstition could devise, or science could suggest, has been tried. Culpepper in his "Herbal" (300 years old), recommends bryony; lunar caustic (nitrate of silver) was extensively used, because silver was the colour of the moon, which caused madness.
The royal touch for scrofula (King's Evil) was also extended to epilepsy, the king blessing a ring, which was worn by the sufferer.
Another old remedy was to cut off a lock of the victim's hair while in a seizure and put it in his hand, which stopped (?) the attack. In Berkshire a piece of silver collected at the communion service and made into a ring was specific, but in Devon a ring made of three nails from an old coffin was preferred. Lupton says: "A piece of child's navel-string borne in a ring is good against falling sickness."
Nearly every drug in the Pharmacopœia has been tried, the drugs now generally used being sodium, potassium and ammonium bromide.
Before bromides were introduced by Locock in
1857, very strict hygienic, dietic and personal disciplinary treatment combined with the use of drugs often effected improvement. Since the use of bromides, these personal habits have, unfortunately, been neglected, far too much reliance being placed on the "three times a day after meals" formula.