This study examined the disease label 'epilepsy' and the social processes that have shaped and legitimated the concept. Using the methodology of content analysis, medical student textbooks listed in Calendars and Handbooks at an Australian univer sity were sampled at ten year intervals over the period 1894-1994. The findings of this research show medical knowledge concerning 'epilepsy' has not been a linear progression of medical enlightenment and humanitarian spirit. To the contrary, the journey was fraught with dissimulation and despair. A hidden curriculum of eugenics permeates medical texts. Clinical definitions of 'epilepsy' remain problematic as physicians grapple with a widely held but false notion that their predecessors helped to generate.
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