Reynolds E
Institute of Epileptology, Weston Education Centre, King's College, Denmark Hill Campus, SE5 9PJ, London, UK.
Lancet. 2001 Aug 18;358(9281):575-7. doi: 10.1016/S0140-6736(01)05710-5.
John Hughlings Jackson is widely credited with the first electrical theory of epilepsy (1873), which was confirmed by the experimental studies of Hitzig and Ferrier. His views are summarised in his famous Lumleian lectures to the Royal College of Physicians in 1890. Robert Bentley Todd, however, had earlier developed an electrical theory of epilepsy, which he presented in his own brilliant Lumleian lectures to the Royal College of Physicians in 1849. Todd was influenced by the electrical discoveries of his contemporary, Michael Faraday, and thought of the brain as having battery like properties that led to the sudden discharge of electrical energy (nervous force) in epilepsy. Unlike Hughlings Jackson, Todd was an anatomist and physiologist as well as a physician, and he did his own electrical experiments in rabbits to prove his theory, something Hughlings Jackson, who relied on Ferrier for scientific and experimental support, could never have done. There is no mention of Todd's Lumleian lectures in Hughlings Jackson's later lectures and writings, nor in those of Hitzig or Ferrier. Todd's remarkable observations and lectures, and his electrical theory of epilepsy deserve to be drawn to the attention of the medical and scientific community.
约翰·休林斯·杰克逊被广泛认为是提出癫痫电学理论（1873年）的第一人，这一理论得到了希齐格和费里尔实验研究的证实。他的观点在1890年他给皇家内科医师学院所作的著名卢姆莱讲座中进行了总结。然而，罗伯特·本特利·托德更早之前就提出了癫痫电学理论，他在1849年给皇家内科医师学院所作的精彩的卢姆莱讲座中阐述了这一理论。托德受到了同时代人迈克尔·法拉第电学发现的影响，他认为大脑具有类似电池的特性，这会导致在癫痫发作时突然释放电能（神经力）。与休林斯·杰克逊不同，托德既是解剖学家、生理学家，也是内科医生，他自己在兔子身上进行电学实验以证明他的理论，而依赖费里尔提供科学和实验支持的休林斯·杰克逊则永远无法做到这一点。在休林斯·杰克逊后来的讲座和著作中，以及在希齐格或费里尔的讲座和著作中，都没有提及托德的卢姆莱讲座。托德卓越的观察、讲座以及他的癫痫电学理论值得引起医学界和科学界的关注。
