Epilepsy in popular Medicine from the Classic Age to the Modern Age: a study on elk hoof as an original treatment

European people believe that epilepsy is a both sacred and demoniac disease in pre and post Hippocratic Age and during Christian Era, too. Therefore, epilepsy is wrapped in mystery. The present work shows an epileptic treatment, the nail of the elk, which is very better known among Northern European people, treating to explain its historical and popular origin causing its importance and success within the Official Medicine in sixteenth century, in seventeenth century, until its end in the next centuries, too. So, we study some Authors attending both the Antiquity, and Modernity Ages. Moreover, we are some witnesses of the nail of the elk decline as a "specific" treatment. At the end, the present work highlights the relationship between the epilepsy and a magic-religious inheritance from the Antiquity to the late Modernity Age. It could be considered as a valid example showing as a popular treatment can earn honors in the Official Pharmacopoeia, but it can go out of it, too