According to reports, Chief Justice John Roberts is resting comfortably following yesterday's seizure. At this point, there is no additional information as to the cause of the "benign idiopathic seizure" which led to his hospitalization yesterday.

I did encounter some interesting information as I perused various articles.

Take this from the New York Times' excellent Supreme Court reporter, Linda Greenhouse.

In an interview on Monday evening, Dr. David J. Langer, the director of cerebrovascular neurosurgery at St. Luke’s-Roosevelt, Beth Israel and Long Island College Hospital, said that medical care after such a seizure should include “a good M.R.I., CAT scan and EEG.” All these tests are available at the Penobscot Bay Medical Center, according to the hospital’s Web site.

“But the chances they’ll find anything and be able to do anything about it are pretty low,” said Dr. Langer, who is also an assistant professor at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine at Yeshiva University.

“In the majority of seizures you see no anatomical cause,” he said. Such a cause could be a tumor, bleeding in the brain, a clogged blood vessel or an injury.

Dr. Langer said it could be difficult for doctors to decide whether the chief justice, who at 52 is the youngest member of the court, should start taking medications, which Dr. Langer said “have significant side effects.” Chief Justice Roberts appears otherwise healthy and is not known to have any chronic medical problems.

In other words, given that the Chief Justice has had only two seizures and they are nearly 15 years apart, there is some disagreement as to whether or not the medications are really necessary. The "significant side effects" comment strikes me as a bit of over-kill, though, as I have worked with a number of colleagues with epilepsy over the year and have known only one to have exhibited major side effects from the medication. After all, most long-term medications (such as my diabetes and blood pressure medications) do have significant side effects, but not for all (or even a majority of) patients.

Indeed, the disagreement over how to classify and treat Roberts' seizures (if ongoing treatment is necessary) is highlighted later in the article.

Dr. John W. Miller, a professor of neurology and director of the University of WashingtonÂ’s regional epilepsy center in Seattle, said that anyone who had more than one seizure, no matter how many years apart, should be classified as having epilepsy.

Based on news accounts, Dr. Miller said, Chief Justice Roberts’s epilepsy would be categorized as “cryptogenic,” meaning that there is presumably a cause but that doctors cannot identify it.

Statistically, he said, it is “extremely unlikely” that this seizure represents a brain tumor. Fewer than 5 percent of those with recurrent seizures have brain tumors as a cause, and a very slowly progressing brain tumor would be rare.

However, as pointed out in an email to me last night, even if one presumes (as Dr. Miller does) that the Chief Justice can legitimately be diagnosed as having epilepsy, that does not necessarily indicate mental illness or intellectual incapacity. After all, the following modern individuals are known to have suffered from epilepsy.

Despite the stigma, many famous people have suffered from the disorder and excelled in spite of it. They include:

* Bud Abbott, American comedian of Abbott and Costello fame
* Richard Burton, Welsh actor
* Truman Capote, American author
* Lewis Carroll, English author and mathematician
* Dante Alighieri, Italian author
* Charles Dickens, English author
* Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Russian author
* Danny Glover, American actor
* Vincent van Gogh, Dutch painter
* Margaux Hemingway, American actress, granddaughter of author Ernest Hemingway
* Elton John, English pop singer
* James Madison, fourth U.S. president
* Guy de Maupassant, French author
* Alfred Nobel, Swedish chemist, engineer and founder of the Nobel Prize awards
* Niccolo Paganini, Italian violinist
* Peter the Great, Russian czar
* Edgar Allen Poe, American author
* Neil Young, Canadian rock musician
* Jonathan Swift, English author
* Peter Ilich Tchaikovsky, Russian composer
* Alfred Lord Tennyson, English poet
* Lord Byron, English poet

There are some truly great and creative minds on that list -- including the man often described as the Father of the Constitution. Given Roberts' lifelong fidelity to that document, I think that he is in excellent company.

There are, of course, other figures who some historians speculate also had epilepsy, though time and the tenuousness of evidence makes classifying these individuals less certain.

Some historical researchers believe there is evidence to suggest that the following famous figures may have also suffered from seizure disorders:

* Alexander the Great, king of Macedonia
* Aristotle, Greek philosopher/scientist
* Napoleon Bonaparte, French general/emperor
* Buddha, founder of Buddhism
* Julius Caesar, Roman emperor
* Hannibal, Carthaginian general
* Michelangelo, Italian painter/sculptor
* Mohammed, prophet of Islam
* Sir Isaac Newton, British mathematician
* Pythagoras, Greek mathematician
* Saint Paul the Apostle, a father of the early Catholic Church
* Socrates, Greek philosopher
* Leonardo da Vinci, Italian painter, draftsman, sculptor, architect and engineer

All are known to have suffered from some sort of seizures at some time, as reported by historical documents. While I might not agree with every classification, it is again pretty clear that a history of seizures is not a bar to success in life. That should demonstrate that this incident is not necessarily a prelude to the Chief Justice's retirement from public life. As I said last night, there is nothing in this incident that should be seen as barring his remaining on the court for another three decades or so.

A second point that I feel needs to be brought up is the earlier seizure. Folks speculated that it was hidden from the administration and from senators at the time of his confirmation hearings. That issue can be definitively laid to rest.

Newsweek reported in November 2005 that Roberts suffered a seizure in January 1993 while golfing. "It was stunning and out of the blue and inexplicable," Larry Robbins, a Justice Department colleague, told the magazine. Robbins said Roberts was not allowed to drive for several months after the seizure and took the bus to work. The magazine quoted a senior White House aide as describing the episode as an "isolated, idiosyncratic seizure."

There is no record of any discussion of the 1993 seizure or of Roberts's health in general during his confirmation hearings. Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.), who chaired the hearings, told CNN on Monday night that senators were told about the previous episode but did not find it serious enough to ask Roberts about. Roberts has no known history of major illness.

Senators knew about the 1993 seizure, but absent any other history of seizures found it to be unimportant. Those seeking to disqualify Roberts based upon the incident (or upon a presumptive diagnosis of epilepsy arising from this incident) find themselves in the position of arguing that the Senate should have considered (or should today consider) an issue that private employers are forbidden to consider -- a real or perceived disability on the part of a candidate for a job. And since there is nothing inherent in epilepsy that would preclude the Chief Justice fully and effectively doing his job, it strikes me that they are seeking to create an ideology exception to the Americans with Disabilities Act.

And again, as I noted yesterday, the level of hatred being spewed by liberal sites deemed "mainstream" among Democrats is pretty frightening. When Bill Clinton fell ill during the 2004 presidential election, we on the right offered prayers and best wishes, despite our previous opposition to the former President and our general dislike of his wife. Contrasted with the comments found on Democratic Underground, DailyKos, and other sites of that ilk. I won't drive them traffic, though, so no links from me.

UPDATE: Chief Justice Roberts has been released from the hospital and says he is doing well.

H/T Malkin, Ace, Bill's Bites, Volokh, Volunteer Opinion Journal, Texas Rainmaker

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Posted by: Greg at 01:58 AM | Comments (10) | Add Comment
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