Talk:List of people with epilepsy/Archive 1

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Archive This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

Contents

Adding to this article

When adding to this article, please consider:

  • Ensuring that the person in question meets the guidelines for inclusion in Wikipedia. If the person does not have their own Wikipedia article, they should not be on this list.
  • Wikifying the name of the person you added.
  • Placing your new submission with respect to alphabetical order.
  • Citing a source for the diagnosis.
  • Refraining from adding people who carry only a posthumous, retrospective diagnosis of epilepsy; or adding a disclaimer or discussion about the source and nature of the proposed diagnosis. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ikkyu2 (talk • contribs)
This was at the bottom of the article. I commented this out but left the text there so anyone editing the article would see this before adding their neighbours to it. JFW | T@lk 21:40, 20 November 2005 (UTC)

Problems

I'm very happy that a page like this finally exists, so we don't need to crowd the epilepsy page with a long list and can give fuller coverage to this topic. However, I have some problems with the current title and inclusion qualifications:

  1. "Famous" is POV. "Noteworthy" would be less so. Not using any term relating to importance or fame or noteworthiness would be the best move, however, because all lists and categorizing systems on Wikipedia are assumed to exclude people who aren't noteworthy enough to even have Wikipedia articles except when they state otherwise. And I can see no possible reason to exclude someone from this list who is noteworthy enough to have an article here and had epilepsy. So address the issue in the article text, if anywhere, not in the title.
  2. Why not include people here who have been widely speculated to have had epilepsy after their deaths? The fact that a hypothesis is unverifiable, or even implausible, does not make it unworthy of inclusion in an encyclopedia, if it's widespread or noteworthy enough. If it did, we wouldn't have any articles on religious topics, for starters. It is not our job to determine what people did or did not definitely have epilepsy, and NPOV is "neutral point of view", not "no point of view". If noteworthy scholars have posited that Muhammad, for example, had epilepsy, then those views should be mentioned here, in addition to any noteworthy views or arguments to the contrary. This article is the ideal place for information such as that, and expanding this article's scope would give it much more potential to be as informative as possible. I don't see how limiting it to those we are absolutely sure had epilepsy, and not even mentioning anyone else, does anyone any good, nor how the opposite could possibly do anyone any harm as long as we make it clear that historical psychoanalysis is impossible to verify and often widely disputed. Heck, if anything, giving coverage on this page to people who are frequently speculated to have had epilepsy wouldn't help propagate erroneous myths or baseless assumptions, but would rather help dispel such myths by subjecting them to the critical analysis and unbiased explanations that they might not get on most other websites! Win-win.

Moving the article name to something like List of people believed to have had epilepsy would be much more consistent with articles like List of people believed to have been affected by bipolar disorder, as well as resolving both of the problems I mentioned above: the problem of being POV by requiring something as subjective as "fame" for inclusion, and the problem of being POV by excluding certain noteworthy viewpoints regarding what people have had epilepsy just because we happen to find them dubious at best. Would we have so many articles on intelligent design if we didn't allow the coverage of heavily speculative, biased, unsubstantiated, or unscientific hypotheses? And many of the post-mortem diagnoses of historical figures have a thousand times more weight to them than the most convincing ID argument. Cui malo? -Silence 07:33, 1 November 2005 (UTC)

I agree with all of the above. (except that epilepsy isn't a psychoanalytical diagnosis, but that's not a big deal.) -Ikkyu2 16:06, 1 November 2005 (UTC)

Deleted Names

Here is a list of names removed from the list. Most of them are listed plenty times on the web or in books. However, I don't regard being present in an epilepsy organisation's list of "famous names" as being a good enough source. Many books also just repeat the same old lists with no justifications. --Colin 17:41, 3 November 2005 (UTC)

Insufficient Sources Found

  • Adam Horovitz (Beastie Boys). No evidence found other than lyrics to "Skill to Pay the Bills" has the words "I'm an epileptic".
Colin, here's some further supporting evidence from some interviews. He does have epilepsy; I met him once and we discussed it briefly, but that's original research and doesn't meet Wikipedia guidelines. He's not comfortable with the idea of being a 'poster boy' for epilepsy. -Ikkyu2 20:59, 3 November 2005 (UTC)
Details magazine, June 1994:
"He's gone through things that would give anyone gray hair. For instance, on the subject of drugs, Adam tells me he doesn't really do them much anymore-except for smoke-because he's got a "head case".
What do you mean?
"I have seizures. In 1989 I was doing some fancy photo shoot and the flashes went pop! and the next thing I know, I'm in an ambulance. I'd had a full-on seizure in front of this photographer, who was like, Oh my God, oh my goodness! So it's serious for me- if I do stimulants, like coke or speed, it's much easier for me to have a heart attack."
Spin magazine, 1994:
"These days, he also wears a medical alert bracelet on his wrist - last November, while watching TV with (girlfriend Kathleen) Hanna, he had a full-on epileptic seizure. The illness has been controlled, but he still can't handle flash photography. What's possibly the most interesting thing about Horovitz's epilepsy is that few Beastie Boys fans seem to know about it."
Ikkyu2, Great. I've added him back in with references to the two mags. Can you supply the month for Spin? --Colin 22:14, 3 November 2005 (UTC)

*Hugo Weaving. Best source I've found is Hugo Weaving - That Eye, The Sky, which mentions an interview. Better sources found. --Colin 20:34, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

  • Henry Winkler. Was apparently "the first National Honorary Chairman of the Epilepsy Foundation of America". Nothing else found.
  • Guadalupe Victoria. Only evidence is the Wikipedia article that states that he died of epilepsy - but no source given for this.
  • Jack Lemmon

*Vachel Lindsay Source found. --Colin 17:37, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

  • Gary Howatt (Hockey)
  • Kerry Armstrong (Actor). The reviews at The Australian National Epilepsy Magazine: Headlines and Naranater's blog seem to suggest that her book "The Circles" (ISBN 1740661257) contains information on her epilepsy.
  • Elton John, (1947—). Despite a thorough search, there are no primary sources for this speculation, which appears on just a few lists. Given this and the extra care we must take with a "living person", it can't be included. If someone can cite a solid reference in a biography (with ISBN, page numbers, etc) or newspaper article, then it can go back.
  • Ninoscka Gwiazdon (1963—) poet. Can't find any info on this person, let alone a mention of epilepsy.
  • Cadwallader C. Washburn, (1818-1882). American businessman, politician, and soldier noted for founding what would later become General Mills.

Historical or Retrospective Diagnosis Only

  • Napoleon Bonaparte. The article "Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte: did he have seizures? Psychogenic or epileptic or both?" by John R. Hughes in the journal Epilepsy & Behavior, Volume 4, Issue 6, December 2003, Pages 793-796. This concludes he suffered from both psychogenic and epileptic attacks. However, in the paper "On the so-called Stokes-Adams disease (slow pulse with syncopal attacks, &c.). The Lancet 2:516-524, 1903. W. Osler says "The slow pulse of Napoleon rests upon tradition; it has been suggested that his epilepsy and attacks of apathy may have been associated features in a chronic form of Stokes-Adams disease."
My money is on Sir William Osler for this diagnosis; he was rightly famed as one of the great diagnosticians of any era. -Ikkyu2 18:31, 21 December 2005 (UTC)
  • Julius Caesar (100 BC—44 BC). The article "Dictator Perpetuus: Julius Caesar—Did he have seizures? If so, what was the etiology?" by John R. Hughes in the journal Epilepsy & Behavior, Volume 5, Issue 5, October 2004, Pages 756-764.. This argues the case that Caesar had complex partial seizures and may also have had absence attacks in his youth. There are several historical documents linking Caesar with epilepsy but none indicate a diagnosis whilst alive. It is possible that such a diagnosis was made (within the obvious medical limitations of the time) but we have no record of it. See Gaius Julius Caesar at the Epilepsy Museum.
Text added byUser:81.157.113.211 moved here as it doesn't currently meet the list entry criteria:
Also, Roman Emperor Julius Caesar (100-44BC) is believed to have temporal lobe epilepsy an affliction which can cause temporary loss of consciousness, extreme behaviour and diarrhoea. The investigators concluded that if that were the case, a man obsessed with his own image and dignity would not countenance losing control in public. At this time, it was considered as the "Sacred Disease" and so, being Emperor, the Roman citizens considered him to be special and different from other people under his rule.
  • Philip K. Dick
  • Socrates
  • Mohammed. See Talk:Epilepsy for an earlier discussion. Any diagnosis can only be speculative and may have originated, according to some authors, as slander by the Byzantium Christian church.
  • St. Paul. Such speculation is best summed up in "Paul: Apostle of the Heart Set Free" by F. F. Bruce: "Many guesses have been made about the identity of this "splinter in the flesh"; and their very variety proves the impossibility of a certain diagnosis. One favourite guess has been epilepsy ... but it is no more than a guess".
  • Ellen G. White
  • Harriet Tubman. In "Bound for the Promised Land: Harriet Tubman: Portrait of an American Hero", author Kate Clifford Larson speculates that Tubman suffered from temporal lobe epilepsy. See also these author notes.

Negative Sources

The article on epilepsy.com - Rewriting History: Did All Those Famous People Really Have Epilepsy? discusses the work of Dr. John Hughes, Department of Neurology, School of Medicine, University of Illinois at Chicago. He details 43 historical figures reported to have epilepsy but who, in his opinion, did not. The original paper (of the same name) is to be found in Epilepsy & Behavior, Volume 6, Issue 2, March 2005, Pages 115-139.

This is all well and good for John Hughes - but his opinions are suspect for the same reasons that other retrospective diagnoses are suspect. He did not have access to the individuals in question to interview or examine them. Taking people off this list because of his retrospective diagnosis is equivalent to putting people on this list because of retrospective diagnosis - unverifiable and ultimately a pointless exercise. -Ikkyu2 06:25, 4 November 2005 (UTC)
I share your reservations about retrospective diagnosis. Limiting the list to those diagnosed whilst alive is a valid option - anyone else care to comment on that? However, even those can be suspect since the diagnosis of epileptic seizures is quite often wrongly made unless by a neurologist in a tertiary hospital. Epilepsy has been a named disease since Hippocrates but can you be absolutely sure of any diagnosis made without EEG or brain scans?
I think ultimately, folk will continue to add names from history to this list unless we can give qualified reasons why they shouldn't be on here. Almost every web site and book on epilepsy has a list of names that is just copied around and for which no sources are given. I do hope this list can be different in this respect.
With regard to John Hughes I have a few points. He is a neurologist, not a historian. As such, he is more qualified than most to speculate - for that is all he can do. He also appears to have devoted some considerable energy and time to remove suspect names from the widespread lists of famous names. A track record where over 40 names are removed and only a couple are added seems to me to show a good level of skepticism. I don't believe "taking people off ... is equivalent to putting people on" in much the same way as courts require the burden of proof to convict. Perhaps saying that they "did not" have epilepsy is wrong -- better to say that there is too little evidence or that other conditions seem more likely.
In summary, I am willing to compromise with Silence and include historical figures only if the source is good enough. I would like to keep the "not sure / unlikely" list of names in the talk page for now. If folk want a list of "People who probably did not have epilepsy" put on the main page then that is fine by me. However I wouldn't want the good and the bad mixed up together. --Colin 10:24, 4 November 2005 (UTC)
Interictal EEG and brain scans are not useful - repeat, not useful - in making or excluding the diagnosis of epilepsy. They can be useful in classifying syndromes or localizing epileptic foci. Knowing how the diagnosis is actually made (it is a clinical diagnosis), you might begin to share my opinion, which is that retrospective attempts at diagnosis are laughably pointless. My own perspective is that I am a practicing epileptologist at a university medical center; my entire work day is spent with epilepsy patients, so I know perhaps a little bit about this. What is valuable to me in diagnosis are the patient's own subjective account, and that of witnesses to seizures; and, in a few difficult cases, video-EEG recordings of seizures. -Ikkyu2 03:23, 7 November 2005 (UTC)
OK. This Internet thing isn't good for avoiding misunderstandings. I am aware of how epilepsy is diagnosed and don't disagree with what you've said. I didn't mention "interictal EEG". I was trying to imagine a circumstance where the diagnosis would be virtually irrefutable: [1] The patient has a tumour visible on MRI/CAT that corresponds with a focus on EEG and [2] The seizure is witnessed whilst under EEG (most often via video-EEG as you mention). I am well aware that often no cause can be found and that for many, seizures can be infrequent enough for there to be very little chance of medical witness (human or electronic). Not many people get to see a "practicing epileptologist at a university medical center", which is why I raised the issue of accuracy even amongst those we believe were diagnosed whilst alive. See the following section.

I think that the current list contains no "historical/retrospective-only diagnosis" people and I have renamed and added to one of the sub-sections above. --Colin 18:17, 7 November 2005 (UTC)

Not Notable (yet)

The following people are somewhat "famous" in that they have appeared in newspaper articles, etc. However, at present they lack a Wikipedia article. Should the red-link turn blue, they can be added to the main page.

  • Chanda Gunn, (1980-). A goalie in the US 2006 Winter Olympic women's hockey team. Gunn was diagnosed with juvenile absence epilepsy at the age of 9, which was treated with valproic acid. A series of tonic-clonic seizures in her teens required the dose of this medicine to be increased. Epilepsy meant that she had to give up her childhood sports of swimming and surfing, but these were soon replaced with hockey.

The Accuracy of Contemporary Diagnosis

How accurate can we be and what level of doubt are we prepared to accept?

I'll take some quotes from Provision of clinical services for people with epilepsy, which discusses the UK situation. The local General Practitioner will see only 1 or 2 new cases of epilepsy each year. "Because of the potential problems of diagnosis, however, it is recommended that a consultant neurologist, or other specialist with an interest in epilepsy should see patients promptly.". Sadly there aren't nearly enough epileptologists in the UK - you can probably count them on your fingers and toes. In the year 2000, there were 330 consultant neurologists in the UK and only 10% of those had a special interest in epilepsy. If you consider paediatric specialists then the number is even smaller. Going back to 1948 (when the NHS was established), the numbers were 50 consultant neurologists and "one or two had a major interest in epilepsy". So, currently, people are being diagnosed and treated for epilepsy by their GP or a non-specialist hospital doctor and not enough are seeing an expert within a satisfactory timescale (or even at all).

What are the consequences of this? A relatively recent scandal has highlighted the numbers of misdiagnoses of epilepsy in the UK. See this article in The Guardian. This concerns "a consultant paediatrician with an interest in neurology rather than having qualifications in that speciality". "His rate of wrong diagnoses, more than 30%, was, according to the British Paediatric Neurology Association, "not unusual" for generalist paediatricians." "Epilepsy Action, a national group, believed 40% of childhood cases were misdiagnosed. There were about 62,000 children with epilepsy in Britain and only 63 paediatric neurologists - and not all had a specialist knowledge in epilepsy."

The articles Fits, faints and funny turns - the differential diagnosis of epilepsy, Syncope and Non-epileptic attack disorder list some of the alternatives to a diagnosis of epilepsy (I'm sure Ikkyu2 won't need to read them, but others may be interested). The last article states "5-20% of people with a confident diagnosis of epilepsy turn out later to have some other disorder which has been misdiagnosed".

So even if we had access to the doctor's notes on all these famous names, we might still have an uncomfortably high error rate. We don't have that luxury. We can only read articles by such non-specialists as biographers and newspaper columnists. Sometimes we can find interviews or speeches where the person has explicitly stated they they have been diagnosed with epilepsy. Other times, the person keeps it secret and we find out after their death, from friends and relatives or perhaps even just hearsay. To add to this, the incidence of drink, drugs and psychological problems in this group of people would appear to be much higher than general - leading to alternative causes of seizures that may be less socially acceptable to admit to. On the other hand, this group will be of average intelligence, able to communicate with their doctors, and so in some ways be easier to diagnose than the average which includes patients with learning difficulties.

There is an interesting article on the (almost) contemporary and probable misdiagnosis of Graham Greene: The Impact of Epilepsy on Graham Greene by E. H. Reynolds. This is a man diagnosed by a "Harley Street specialist" (the best money could buy in the 1920's UK). Apparently, "The treatment consisted of good walks and Keppler's Malt Extract." --Colin 18:17, 7 November 2005 (UTC)

Consensus editing.

I'm really happy with the way this page, and this talk page, turned out, even though I was totally opposed to them in the beginning. It's been an eye-opener for me about the power of consensus editing. -Ikkyu2 01:28, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

I think this is one of the better "believed to have XYZ medical condition" list I've seen. Many of these devolve into "this guy in Denmark believes he had XYZ condition, but he doesn't know for certain." So yeah I can see being happy about it.--T. Anthony 04:18, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

Listcruft

I think this article avoids being caught on almost all of the barbs in Wikipedia:Listcruft. I believe the sole problem (which is a common one) is Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information. Specifically

Lists or repositories of loosely associated topics such as quotations, aphorisms or persons ... Of course, there is nothing wrong with having lists if their entries are famous because they are associated with or significantly contributed to the list topic.

This is expanded on in Lists (stand-alone lists) - Lists of people:

Selected lists of people should be selected for importance/notability in that category and should have Wikipedia articles.

Does this apply to all the people on this list? No, it does not. Indeed, some of the people most noted for having epilepsy are excluded from this list due to significant doubts about their diagnosis. There are a number of people in this list that are known to the general population as having epilepsy, and for their epilepsy to be a significant issue worthy of newspaper columns, etc. There is another group of people that are well known for their epilepsy only within the epilepsy community. This may be because they are patrons of epilepsy charities, or have been written about in epilepsy-related books and web sites. Generally, the more recent the diagnosis, the more likely that they will have had newspaper articles written about their epilepsy and that they will have been recruited for charitable work.

The problem with "notability in that category" is largely due to the stigma attached to having Epilepsy. Something that lists such as this can help to dispel.


If this is listcruft, Aristotle is also guilty. In his book The Falling Sickness : A History of Epilepsy from the Greeks to the Beginnings of Modern Neurology, Owsei Temkin writes:

In 1602 Taxil said that Aristotle made a whole catalogue of famous epileptics in which he named Hercules, Ajax, Bellerophon, Socrates, Plato, Empedocles, Maracus of Syracuse, and the Sybils.

Jean Taxil extends the list with (in French) "Iule Caesar, et Caligula Empereurs, Liuius Drusus, premier tribun du peuple Romain, Petrarche; et encore que ce detestable Mahomet". People have continued maintaining such lists during the 400 years since Taxil and two milennia since Aristotle.

A quick Google search for '"famous people with epilepsy"', gives a staggering 17,000 pages. Every epilepsy charity or support group has its own "famous people" page. Searching Google books shows that many books on epilepsy (for general readers) dedicate at least a paragraph or two to such a list.

Would I expect to find this list in an encyclopaedia? Yes – probably at the end of a big article on Epilepsy. That is where the list originated. Since leaving home, this list has been refined then enlarged. Every entry has been expanded and comprehensive references added. Having its own article, has allowed this to happen.

Colin°Talk 23:36, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

It might not be a bad idea to link to the major epilepsy website's "famous people with epilepsy" pages, even though (imo) their standards for inclusion have sometimes been less stringent than those used here. -ikkyu2 (talk) 21:32, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

Athletes

In order to please both American and British readers of Wikipedia, it has been sugested that the section title of "Athlete" should not be used as it refers to only competitors in Athletic ativities in British English. It was previously called "Sports People" but I do not believe this should be used either as it sounds clunky and unprofessional. I would like to reach a title that is acceptable for both types of English. Please suggest names you would find to be acceptable so that a new title may be created.

Suggestions

Dostoyevsky's experience was "unusual"?

This article says, 'Dostoyevsky's epilepsy was unusual in that he claimed to experience an ecstatic aura prior to a seizure, whereas most people experience unpleasant feelings.' As far as I know this is not unusual or, to be more exact, this is precisely the type of epilepsy I lived with until I had a right temporal lobectomy in 1996 to end it. I am open to correction here but in all my reading this is a common feature of right temporal lobe epilepsy, which I believe now is termed 'complex partial' epilepsy. For me, reading Dostoyevsky was an amazing gift- I only wish I discovered him in my childhood when I was struggling to describe my ecstacy when a seizure was imminent. I had never read somebody put in words exactly how I felt when I had an attack. I, too, would give the world for that moment. I've read most of Dostevsky's work now and his epilepsy punctuates his entire work, his heroes and his antiheroes. In addition Dostoyevsky's letters, in which he talks in detail about these aura, are available in Joseph Frank's five volume biography of him. It is very well worth reading for anybody with this type of epilepsy, or for parents of people with it. This 'glorious' aura is very well known and according to my consultant people who no longer have attacks actually long for it. All the best! 193.1.172.163 03:10, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

Very interesting. More info on auras can be found at Epilepsy.com: Funny Feelings and Epilepsy Action: Auras. Wrt to the "unusual ... ecstatic aura", the article refers to PMID 16194626. I have not been able to read the full text. It's rather expensive to buy journal articles but perhaps your library or college would have access? You might also want to search PubMed for "ecstatic aura" or "Dostoevsky". Other articles that comment on the rarety include PMID 7676119, PMID 14698700, Scientific And Literary Views Of Epilepsy: The Relevance Of Prince Myshkin and Freud on Dostoevsky's Epilepsy: A Revaluation.

I wonder if such ecstatic auras are so noteworthy and memorable (the patient enjoy's their illness) that it is "well known" but actually statistically quite rare. If you can find published text to the contrary, then I would be glad to hear of it.

I encourage you to get an account, and contribute your extensive knowlege of Dostoyevsky to Wikipedia. Regards, Colin°Talk 13:21, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

External links

I added the following section on 28 July 2006:

External links
There are many thousands of web sites listing famous people who have or were believed to have had epilepsy. Most have more liberal inclusion criteria than this article, and few cite sources for their information. Among the most comprehensive are:

This was removed by an anon shortly afterwards with the comment "I thought we had gotten rid of links to such sites, precisely because they rarely cite sources and have such low standards for inclusion." Whilst I agree that such sites aren't acceptable for use as references, I did think they might be useful to give an complementary viewpoint on the subject.

User:Ikkyu2 suggested adding such links back in March. Does anyone else wish to comment, to help establish a consensus on whether to have External links or not. Cheers, Colin°Talk 19:18, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

My feeling is that this list is currently far and away the best-documented and most complete list of its type ever produced anywhere by anyone. That said, external links are probably superfluous. -ikkyu2 (talk) 08:19, 21 September 2006 (UTC)