Patients may experience unusual smells, visual symptoms, or feelings. The seizure itself is known as the ictus. The period of time after the seizure is called the postictal state. Seizures were depicted by prehistoric man in cave paintings. Hippocrates wrote of epilepsy and of its relationship to the brain.
Epilepsy also is described in the Bible.
Writings from 4,000 years ago depict epileptics as possessed by demons. Julius Caesar, the great Russian novelist Dostoyevsky, and King Charles II all are said to have had seizures. Incidence Seizure disorders are a common neurological problem. In the United States alone, it has been estimated that more than 4 million people have some form of epilepsy. The risk of epilepsy from birth through age 20 is approximately 1 percent.