Thus Clark & Prout, in true fin de siècle mood, saw the outcome of status; an apocalyptic view which sets the scene for our sombre reflections on prognosis. Neurological thought is often traced back (in Anglo-Saxon if not Gallic texts!) to Hughlings Jackson or Gowers, matchless theoreticians of nineteenth century epilepsy. On the subject of status epilepticus, though, both were almost silent. Jackson gives one case report of a female patient with recurrent status who survived the repeated episodes unharmed, and Gowers commented that he had not personally seen a case. In regard to prognosis in epilepsy, Gowers considered ‘the danger to life in epilepsy is not great. Alarming as is the aspect of a severe epileptic fit — imminent as the danger to life appears when the patient is lying senseless, with livid, swollen and distorted features, and convulsions which almost asphyxiate him, looking “as if strangled by the bow of an invisible executioner” (Radcliffe), it is extremely rare for a patient to die in a fit’ (Gowers 1881).