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revivalism, spiritualism, and other ostensibly eccentric superstitious or supernatural practices. 63 In 1846, Hector Landouzy first coined the term ‘hystero-epilepsy’ to bring together medical investigations of the physical ailments which manifested in patients suffering extreme mental excitement, but it was only in 1881 that the neurologist William Gowers developed a method for distinguishing between epileptic seizures and ‘pseudoseizures’. 64 This ambiguity allowed Messer
young generation were less concerned with the ethics surrounding faith, God and the afterlife, and more with issues that many religious figures had traditionally ignored, such as the environment, gender and racial equality, nuclear weapons, political activism and, crucially, science and medicine. Some Anglican figures, such as John Robinson, the Bishop of Woolwich, responded to the decline in religious faith by endorsing an ‘agnostic theology’ that rejected the idea of God as a supernatural being living ‘up there’, questioned the veracity of the virgin birth and the
study her more closely. He concluded that no physical cause for her wounds could be detected and deemed a supernatural intervention at least possible. 54 It is unnecessary to state that his conclusion earned him not much more than mockery from his anticlerical colleagues. Hubert Boëns, a physician from Charleroi, presented his evaluation of Louise’s case before the Royal Academy