The idea of using potassium bromide was thus not directly to control the seizures – but this proved to be the actual result. He was particularly interested in ’hysterical epilepsy’, a condition thought only to be suffered by women, and he began to prescribe potassium bromide to his female patients with seizures who experienced ’a great deal of sexual excitement and disturbance’. As Lockock subscribed to the popular idea in the medical fraternity at the time that convulsions and epilepsy were caused by excessive sexual indulgence and particularly masturbation, this seemed an interesting lead. Lockock had read a report from Germany, where it was claimed that several people had become temporarily impotent as a result of taking potassium bromide. His work, published in The Lancet in 1857, has been put forward as a classic example of serendipity in medicine, where a totally useless theory accidentally results in an effective treatment. But the real benefit was discovered by accident by the British doctor Charles Lockock. They employed bromide as an alternative to potassium iodide for the treatment of syphilis, with little evidence of a therapeutic result. It was first employed by French physicians on the assumption that bromine was a good substitute for iodine. Unlike common salt, potassium bromide found its way into the hands of clinicians rather than cooks. Bromine was isolated from seawater in 1826 and potassium bromide was produced soon after.
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