By the 18th and 19th centuries, the rise of scientific medicine, anatomy, and pharmacology began to replace faith-based remedies like St. Paul's Potion. As medical knowledge advanced, epilepsy and paralysis were better understood as neurological conditions with biological causes. Many traditional remedies were dismissed or fell out of use, altho

Epilepsy Epilepsy was often feared as a mysterious and dangerous illness. Known as the "falling sickness" due to sudden seizures and loss of consciousness, it was attributed various causes: divine punishment, demonic possession, or physical imbalance. St. Paul's Potion was taken regularly as a preventive tonic or during episodes to calm the pat

Medieval and early modern European medicine was heavily influenced by the humoral theory, derived from Hippocrates and Galen, which posited that health depended on the balance of four humors: blood, phlegm, yellow bile, and black bile. Epilepsy and paralysis were often seen as results of imbalances or blockages of humors affecting the brain and

The exact origin of St. Paul's Potion is difficult to pinpoint due to the scarcity of primary sources and the oral tradition that preserved many such recipes. However, it is generally believed to have emerged in the medieval period, likely between the 12th and 15th centuries, when monastic herbal medicine flourished in Europe. St. Paul, known in