Pre-history of status epilepticus

Epilepsy, that unrivalled hierophant of neurology, has an ancient pedigree. The Sakikku cuneiform is the earliest known record, and there, with due foreboding, is the first allusion to status (fig. 1.1). Surprisingly, though, in the long line of historical reference to epilepsy which followed, status received scant attention. No condition resembling status was recorded by Hippocrates in the fourth century BC in his great work on epilepsy, nor by Galen in the second century. The fifth-century Numidian, Caelius Aurelianus, gave a grave prognosis to protracted epileptic attacks ‘which extended into a second day’, but there was little other mention of prolonged seizures in the classical literature. Mediaeval medicine left status undisturbed, although epilepsy was extensively described because of its demoniacal associations. In renaissance times there were sporadic reports: