During the 19th century there was significant interest in epilepsy deaths, perhaps because this was a time when people with epilepsy were institutionalized in asylums. In 1867 3,354 patients with incurable epilepsy were in public asylums in England and Wales. The medical profession observed at first hand when a person with epilepsy died. The condition was viewed very seriously as modern anti-epileptic drugs had not yet been developed and medical treatments were of limited efficacy.

An important article appeared in the Lancet in 1868 written by Bacon based on his experience as Medical Superintendent of the Cambridge County Asylum. Bacon categorizes deaths due to epilepsy itself as arising from `sudden deaths in a fit', `deaths after a rapid succession of fits' and `deaths from accidents'. He writes with considerable concern about the lack of any proper classification of deaths from epilepsy and suggests that to help research in the future his classification of epilepsy deaths is adopted :

" If practitioners would adopt some such system ...we would not have to lament such a meaningless blank as the word now represents in lists of mortality" (Bacon, Lancet 1867)

The criticisms of physicians like Bacon in 1868 that lack of proper classification hindered research into mortality are mirrored in writings today. Although no consensus existed at the time as to definitions and terminology in describing SUDEP, epilepsy specialists at the end of the 19th century were well aware of the dangers of seizures recognizing that seizure deaths could be accidental or due to single or serial seizures.