It's Purple Day!

Today is Epilepsy awareness day, and in honour of the occasion, I thought I'd give you a little history about epilepsy... In those case, what the Romans thought about it!

The Romans called epilepsy the ‘falling sickness’ and believed people with the condition to be possessed by demons. To ‘test’ people, they would give them a small piece of jet and make them smell it; if they didn’t immediately drop down and have a seizure, they were deemed safe. Magical practices such as bans on eating certain foods, wearing black clothing, and taking regular baths were thought to provide protection – drinking human blood was also believed to be a good preventative tool.

Interesting, huh?