The Epileptology of John Thompson Dickson (1841–1874)

Abstract

To document John Thompson Dickson's interpretation of epileptogenesis, published between 1869 and 1874, and to compare it with John Hughlings Jackson's contemporaneous thought. Examination of the relevant contemporary English language medical literature. Dickson probably built on Samuel Wilks's interpretation of epileptic seizure mechanisms to develop a reasonably comprehensive hypothesis of epileptogenesis that was in advance of Jackson's thought on the matter, and was in many respects consistent with present-day concepts, at least in relation to the focal epilepsies. Dickson's untimely death probably prevented his concept of epileptogenesis from being more widely appreciated.