Plural of seizure; sudden attacks or fits, especially of epilepsy, or acts of taking possession forcibly.
From Old French 'seisir' meaning to take possession, from Frankish 'sakjan' meaning to claim. The medical sense developed from the idea of being 'seized' or taken hold of by an uncontrollable force.
The word 'seizure' reveals medieval understanding of epilepsy as being 'seized' by supernatural forces, which is why epilepsy was once called the 'sacred disease'. Modern neuroscience shows this intuition wasn't entirely wrong - the brain is indeed temporarily 'taken over' by abnormal electrical activity.
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