In Spite of Epilepsy
by Matthew Woods (9781150351846)

Subtitle: Being a Review of the Lives of Three Great Epileptics,--Julius Caesar, Mohammed, Lord Byron,--The Founders Respectively of an Empire, a Religion, and a School of Poetry General Books publication date: 2009 Original publication date: 1913 Original Publisher: The Cosmopolitan press Subjects: Epilepsy Notes: This is a black and white OCR reprint of the original. It has no illustrations and there may be typos or missing text. When you buy the General Books edition of this book you get free trial access to Million-Books.com where you can select from more than a million books for free. Excerpt: LORD BYRON CHAPTER XXII Unlike Caesar and Mohammed, Byron's epilepsy was at first psychic, perhaps only emotional, petit, but in time it developed into grand mal, responding by convulsions, -- clonic and tonic spasms, -- to certain sensations or impressions. Such, it would seem, was the attack he had upon seeing the tragedian Edmund Keene act the character of Sir Giles Overreach in Massinger's " A New Way to Pay Old Debts." It was a first night after prolonged preparation. The house was filled with the elite of London. Every branch of polite and elegant society was present; literature, art, and fashion occupied the boxes, and crowded the chief seats. Preliminary announcements had filled the public mind with great expectations. The time at last came, the orchestra subsided into silence, the curtain rose, the drama began. So intense was the suspense of the audience during its progress, so dreadful was the realism of the actor in his characterization of the irascible and turbulent Sir Giles, that many of his auditors were violently affected by it. The Duke of Wellington fainted. Leigh Hunt, " an old stager," who was there in the capacity of dramatic critic, was completely overcome. Many prominent persons wentinto hysterics, and Lord Byron " had an attack of his epilepsy " and was carried out of the house in spasms. That the " noble lord " was not born with a silver...

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