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Documented epileptic illness across the adult career

Dostoyevsky’s epilepsy is documented in letters and in others’ memoirs across the adult life, with a conventional public start in the 1840s cluster stored here at year-level 1846 beside the first books. In the causal graph this event weakens Health-System Capacity, a driver that strengthens Hospital beds (per 1,000 people) — a worsening welfare path.

Documented epileptic illness across the adult career
Read the full account

Dostoyevsky’s epilepsy is documented in letters and in others’ memoirs across the adult life, with a conventional public start in the 1840s cluster stored here at year-level 1846 beside the first books. Medium confidence on any one early date; high on the career-long disease.

Context

Health path: a nervous disease in a century of little treatment. Shared with physicians who failed or helped. Distinct from Omsk crowding as infect. Later diagnostic debates (temporal lobe, etc.) are not invented here as certainty.

Shared responsibility is part of Documented epileptic illness across the adult career. Naming Fyodor Dostoyevsky does not delete co-authors, institutions, or later transmitters. The lag from 1846-01-01 to any measured indicator is not treated as zero. Alternative explanations — weather, other armies, later statutes, or independent cultural change — remain live where the sources do not close them.

Why it matters

It is not a unique prevalence series.

Who was responsible

Contribution type and responsibility level for each recorded actor — not sole-author shorthand.

  • Fyodor Dostoyevsky

    Person

    Direct responsibility

    responsibility level 0.24 · verified

    Named patient of a lifelong falling sickness. No clinic he founded. Complex medical biography, not a public-health office.

What changed

Fact → Driver → Indicator. Relationship strength orders the paths; it is not the observed indicator movement.

    1. FactDocumented epileptic illness across the adult career
    2. weakensDriverHealth-System Capacity
    3. strengthensIndicators (2)Hospital beds (per 1,000 people)
    Worsening path

    impact weight 0.25 · Effect from 1 January 1846 · verified

    • Hospital beds (per 1,000 people)

      via Health-System Capacity

      Worse

      Strengthens · Relationship strength 0.15 (weight 0.25 × strength 0.6)

      Observed

      3.08 Per 1000 people · 1.24 below the normal line (2023)

      Worse than normal

      6 readings, 2018–2023: rose from 3.07 Per 1000 people to 3.08 Per 1000 people.

      Above normal = better

    • Under-five mortality rate (global)

      via Health-System Capacity

      Worse

      Weakens · Relationship strength 0.13 (weight 0.25 × strength 0.5)

      Observed

      37.4 deaths per 1,000 live births · 12.4 above the normal line (2024)

      Worse than normal

      7 readings, 2018–2024: fell from 40 deaths per 1,000 live births to 37.4 deaths per 1,000 live births.

      Above normal = worse

Evidence

The sources behind this fact and its verification state.

Verified2 sources on file
  1. 1.F. M. Dostoevsky Literary-Memorial Museum — St PetersburgDostoevsky Museum, Kuznechny Lane · High credibility · verified
  2. 2.Britannica — Fyodor DostoyevskyEncyclopaedia Britannica · High credibility · verified
What the sources establish

Britannica at https://www.britannica.com/biography/Fyodor-Dostoyevsky (opens in a new tab) independently notes the epilepsy. Kuznechny museum at https://eng.md.spb.ru/ (opens in a new tab) presents the biographical illness cluster. Goslitmuz is official neighbourhood. No unique clinic chart is supplied.

Established: documented epilepsy across the career. Not established: a unique first-seizure day. Year-level 1846 as early public cluster. Distinct from Myshkin. Career-long falling sickness, letters and memoirs, 1846 early cluster, not the 1869 novel. Official https://eng.md.spb.ru/ (opens in a new tab) is not independent https://www.britannica.com/biography/Fyodor-Dostoyevsky (opens in a new tab).

Later competitions, monuments, translations, UNESCO listings, museums, and adaptations are not converted into extra lifetime acts.

If a number is not in the two records named above, it is not supplied here.

Confidence is stated on the impact path, not hidden in adjectives. The illness is not The Idiot as a book. Mixed effects of Documented epileptic illness across the adult career are separate paths.

That reading is an impact-path choice, not a property stored on the Fact itself.

Causal path

How this event connects to drivers and indicators in the graph.

  1. ActorFyodor Dostoyevsky
  2. contributed toFactDocumented epileptic illness across the adult career
  3. weakensDriverHealth-System Capacity
  4. strengthensIndicatorHospital beds (per 1,000 people)

Cite this page

Factrail. (2026). Documented epileptic illness across the adult career. Factrail. https://factrail.ai/facts/dost-epilepsy

https://factrail.ai/facts/dost-epilepsy

Accessed 15 October 2026.

By the Factrail desk · Method: how we source and score · Last reviewed

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