List of people with epilepsy

This is a list of notable people who have, or had, the medical condition epilepsy. Following from that, there is a short list of people who have received a speculative, retrospective diagnosis of epilepsy. Finally there is a substantial list of people who are often wrongly believed to have had epilepsy.

A possible link between epilepsy and greatness has fascinated biographers and physicians for centuries. In his "Treatise on Epilepsy", the French 17th century physician Jean Taxil refers to Aristotle's "famous epileptics". This list includes Hercules, Ajax, Bellerophon, Socrates, Plato, Empedocles, Maracus of Syracuse, and the Sibyls.cite web
url = http://www.chez.com/asklepios/taxil/Livre1_Chap15.htm
title = Traicté de l'Epilepsie
accessdate = 2006-08-15
author = Jean Taxil
year = 1602] However, historian of medicine Owsei Temkin argues that Aristotle had in fact made a list of melancholics and had only associated Hercules with the "Sacred Disease".Drusus (tribune of the Roman people), Petrarch and Muhammad.

More recently, many saints and other religious figures have been suspected of having had temporal lobe epilepsy.cite journal
author = Dewhurst K, Beard A
title = Sudden religious conversions in temporal lobe epilepsy. 1970.
journal = Epilepsy & Behaviour
volume = 4
issue = 1
pages = 78–87
year = 2003
pmid = 12609232
format = PDF
url=http://www.uni-graz.at/~schulter/se04_religiosity.pdf
doi = 10.1016/S1525-5050(02)00688-1] J.E. Bryant's book from 1953, "Genius and Epilepsy", has a list of over 20 people that combines the great and the mystical.cite book
last = Ernest
first = Bryant J.
title = Genius and Epilepsy. Brief sketches of Great Men Who Had Both
year = 1953
publisher = Ye Old Depot Press
location = Concord, Massachusetts ] Recent scholars are more skeptical. Neuropsychiatrist Peter Fenwick is amongst those who question the widespread labeling of religious figures with temporal lobe epilepsy. He believes this may "owe more to the enthusiasm of their authors than to the true scientific understanding"cite web
accessdate = 2006-08-15
url = http://www.start.gr/user/symposia/fen4.htm
title = Untitled
author = Peter Fenwick
date = 1994-01-07
publisher = 4th International Science Symposium on Science and Consciousness.] In a recent detailed review of the subject, neurologist John Hughes concluded that the majority of famous people alleged to have epilepsy did not in fact have this condition.cite journal
author=Hughes JR
title=Did all those famous people really have epilepsy?
journal=Epilepsy & Behavior
year=2005
pages=115–39
volume=6
issue=2
pmid=15710295
doi=10.1016/j.yebeh.2004.11.011] cite web
author = Jenna Martin
url = http://www.epilepsy.com/articles/ar_1107544697.html
title = Rewriting History: Did All Those Famous People Really Have Epilepsy?
work = Epilepsy.com
accessdate = 2006-02-02]

Certain diagnosis

This categorised chronological list contains only those people with a firm and uncontested diagnosis made while still alive.

Acting

port

Retrospective diagnosis

The following people were not diagnosed with epilepsy during their lifetime. A retrospective diagnosis is speculative and, as detailed below, can often be wrong.

Misdiagnosis by association

Many individuals have been mistakenly recorded as having epilepsy due to an association with someone (real or fictional) who did have epilepsy, or something similar.

Notes and references