Soren Kierkegaard

The “falling sickness” was regarded as belonging to a category that cov-
ered leprosy and other abominations, including syphilis, for example, and
this of course influenced generally held views about the character of the
illness. Kierkegaard’s own physician, Oluf Lundt Bang, was no exception
in this respect. “Marriage must be discouraged, partly out of concern for the
offspring,” he explained in hisHandbook for Therapy, where he discriminated
between hereditary and acquired epilepsy, the former of which he viewed
as “completely untreatable.” Could this have been among the reasons that
Kierkegaard felt obligated to break off his engagement to Regine? In any
case, the conjectures Bang offered concerning what could set off outbreaks
of the illness would be more than enough to cause concern: “The most
common cause is a person being frightened, which can even be passed on
to the fetus by the mother, indeed, even in dreams. In general, almost all
the usual causes can induce both an initial outbreak as well as subsequent
attacks: exposure to bad air, where many people are gathered; getting
chilled; bathing; stimulating drink; tight-fitting clothing; mental stress;
music; debauchery, especially masturbation.”
Bang provided a dramatic account of an epileptic attack. An attack begins
with a feeling “like that of a wind, a draft, a chill, which goes up to the
brain,” shortly after which the ill person “falls down, often with a piercing
scream. The eyes are unblinking; the pupils motionless; the veins are tensed;
the breath is held; the pulse is weak; unconsciousness from the start. After
this short-lived tetanic stage comes the convulsive stage: spasms in all the
extremities and in the face; foaming at the mouth, with the foam sometimes
bloody because the tongue has been bitten; the thumbs concealed in
clenched fists; the half-open eyes are contorted; the face alternately red and
pale; the pulse becomes stronger and fuller; after an indefinite period of
time, breathing becomes deeper and the violent movements stop; con-
sciousness gradually returns; there is tenderness and pain in those extremities
which had struck anything; there is some stiffness and headache, though no
memory of the previous state.” Bang also pointed out that there can be
outbreaks of lesser intensity and shorter duration, but which on the other
hand are more frequent, “sometimes many—indeed, one hundred in a
twenty-four-hour period.” But by the same token an attack “could also
come only once.” If Kierkegaard suffered from temporal lobe epilepsy, it
would of course be difficult to determine how often he might have had
major attacks. Perhaps it only happened on a single occasion, which a little
journal entry from 1848mightallude to: “Reply: Alas, to be transported up
into the third Heaven onlyoncein an entire lifetime—and in remembrance
of it to retain a thorn that brings it to mind perhapsmany timesevery day!”