Epileptics

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 Heracles, Ajax, Bellerophon, Socrates, Plato, Empedocles, Maracus of Syracuse, and the Sibyls. However, historian of medicine Owsei Temkin argues that Aristotle had in fact made a list of melancholics and had only associated Heracles with the "Sacred Disease". Taxil goes on to add his own names: Roman Emperor Caligula, Drusus (tribune of the Roman people), Muhammad, and Petrarch. Neurologist John Hughes concluded that the majority of famous people alleged to have epilepsy did not in fact have this condition.

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

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

However, some scholars believe that Caesar's symptoms, as well as the deaths of his father and paternal grandfather, may be better explained by cardiovascular disease and stroke, and that the documentation of his epilepsy could be unreliable since certain symptoms were not described until after his death may. Epilepsy was considered a "sacred disease" and therefore may have been publicized by family members after his death to portray a specific public image.

...
Wikipedia