78 Rafael Karsten. [N:o 1 



likely to give rise to such a view '). Thus epilepsy, an evil 

 which through its stränge symptoms cannot fail to strike un- 

 civilised man, was to the Grreeks the „tsQå rdcroc" par préfé- 

 rence. Suidas tells us 2) that its sacredness was due to the 

 belief that it was caused by the moon to which as we have 

 seen various mysterious effects were ascribed. Whether in- 

 flicted directly or indirectly b}^ „Hecate" or some other male- 

 volent deity, epilepsy was, according .to early Greekl belief, 

 due to demoniac influence. At the time of Hippocrates in the 

 V. and IV. century B. C. this belief seems to have been a mat- 

 ter of the past at least to the Greek physieians; bnt that it 

 was still by no means iincommon in certain circles of the popu- 

 lation appears from his very works. Hippocrates begins his 

 treatise On the Sacred Disease by the statement that „people 

 have ascribed to it a divine nature and a divine cause on account 

 of thier lacking knowledge and the wonder it arouses, being 

 different from other diseases" ; hence also, he adds, they try to 

 cure it not by natural means but by purifications and magical 

 incantations ^). The great Hellenic physician realised the truth 

 which is apparent with regard to primitive religion in general, 

 that ignorance of the true nature of things and events has 

 been the mother of superstition *). The same primitive view is 

 still more clearly pointed out by a låter writer on medicine, 

 Aretaeus from Cappadocia, who suggests that epilepsy has 

 been called a sacred disease because of the belief that it is 

 caused by a demon who has entered the body of man ^). 



^) See Snprri. p. 5. Ci. my Origin of Worship, p. 26 sqq. 



-) Suidas, s. v. it(jä vöaoi. avri] rfj (Jthjvjf åvdxeLtai. vjtu TavTi]g yi- 

 vea&ai (paai. Cf. Hippoor. I. 593 K., on the hallucinations of cpileptic per- 

 sons: 'E}cåTi]i (paoL tlvai éjTL^io?.åg y.a\ i)Qé)cov icpööovg, xa&aQuotdi te pfpfor- 

 Tot xal £7taoLÖr}(n. 



') Hippocr. De niorbo sncro c. 1, p. 324. 



*) Hippocr. op. dt. c. 1 p. 325: ovtol toivvv jca^aiij-rexiJI^^vot Kal n(ju- 

 ^aXköuevoL tö &eiov TT/g åu)]yavii]g öia ro //») \ayfiv o, n jtQoaevéyxavreg 

 (t)(peh]aovai, oig [ir) xaTaöijkoi tconi oi)()ev tTTinTdutvoL, LtQÖv évåuiaav tovto 

 TÖ Tfå^og elvat, etc. 



^) Aretaeus Cappad. De morbo chron. I. 4: ?/ ötä . . iyaiog ovyt åv- 

 i^ljcosiLvijg ä}.Xä ^tiijg rj öaLuovog öö^ijg ég fåi'9()o}jTov eioöhov . . . Tr)vöe 

 énLxh^oxov ie()i]r. 



