Epilepsy: The 'falling sickness'.

Shakespeare wrote of Julius Caesar's 'falling sickness'. Epilepsy was a mystery then and remains an enigmatic condition. It affects around 400,000 Australians and is typified by seizures and commonly a temporary loss of consciousness during the seizure. For centuries it has been associated with prophets, mystics and witchcraft. Most famously the Russian novelist Fyodor Dostoevsky believed epilepsy deepened his religious beliefs and gave him intense feelings of joy or 'ecstatic auras'. More recently, studies have recorded that a small minority of epileptics do develop a powerful religious faith, seemingly as a result of their condition. Professor Michael Trimble, from the Institute of Neurology in London, and Professor Bryan Kies from Groote Schuur Hospital in South Africa discuss the continuing challenges and puzzles of epilepsy.