Epilepsy, a violent nervous affection, manifesting itself usually in sudden convulsive seizures and unconsciousness, followed by temporary stoppage of the breath and rigidity of the body, popularly known as “falling sickness”; origin as yet undecided; attributed by the ancients to demoniacal possession.
Definition taken from The Nuttall Encyclopædia, edited by the Reverend James Wood (1907)
Epigram * Epimenides