Complete Record - Heirs of Hippocrates No. 709.5

PHILIPPE HECQUET (1661-1737) Le naturalisme des convulsions dans les maladies de l'epidémie convulsionnaire. Chez Andreas Gymnicus ... 1733 First edition. Vol. 1: [2], 198, 35, [1] p.; v. 2: 195, [1] p.; v. 3: 102, 79, [1] p. 17 cm.

For more information on this author or work, see number: 709

First edition of Hecquet’s work on epidemic convulsions, anonymously published under a ficticious imprint. In Hecquet’s studies of convulsions and fits he discusses a case of mass hysteria which occurred at the cemetery of St. Médard in the 1720’s in which an increasing number of people, particularly women, went into convulsions and trance-like states accompanied by religious emotions. Hecquet denied the miraculous nature of these events against the Jasenist theologians who hailed them as being divine inspiration. As however, no study had been made, nor was made until much later, of mass hysteria and mass suggestion, Hecquet was obliged to look for a medical explanation for these events. His explanation was that the affliction was contagious, and since many of the young women exhibited the neurotic behavior and symptoms associated with what was known as uterine hysteria, a complaint then considered to a forerunner to epilepsy, his conclusion was that epilepsy was contagious. Whilst Hecquet tried to approach the problem from a medical point of view, the fact that epilepsy was considered a ‘catchable’ disease revived the idea that it was a demoniac affliction and, as a result, the isolation of epileptics from the god-fearing populace lasted well into the 19th century.

Cited references: Osler, 2918; Wellcome III, p. 232 (part 1 only)

Gift of john Martin, M.D.