Napoleon Bonaparte
French Emperor
1769 - 1821
N. at the Great St. Bernard Pass
Jaques-Louis David (1800)



Napoleon Bonaparte

German Epilepsy Museum Kork

www.epilepsiemuseum.de
 

"Il gémissait et il bavait, il avait des espèces de convulsions qui cessèrent au bout d'un quart d'heure..." ("He sighed and frothed at the mouth, he had the type of convulsions which stopped after a quarter of an hour...")

This report given by Talleyrand in the year 1805 is not the only contemporary evidence of Napoleon having epileptic seizures.

The following anecdote is taken from one of Napoleon's biographies which was published as early as 1838: "From his youth, he had epileptic fits. When he was at school in Paris, he had to eat on his knees as a punishment for insubordination, but he had such a huge seizure that they had to let him off."

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