Neurological Disorders in Famous Artists
J. Bogousslavsky, F. Boller, eds.
Karger, Basel 2005, 192 pages
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his short book takes the concept of "always
leave the reader wanting more" to an extreme. The authors, a collection of clinical
neurologists, describe various cultural figures, including
Nietzsche (who died of a stroke after a long and painful struggle with syphilis),
Edgar Allen Poe (who had possible epileptic seizures),
Van Gogh (who had bipolar disorder and absinthe/terpene abuse),
Kant (who may have suffered from Lewy body dementia),
Dostoevsky, Flaubert, Apollinaire, Guy de Maupassant, Ravel, Handel,
Schumann, and Mussorgsky, among others. This is a fascinating and
important subject, and the
authors refrain from either politicizing or deconstructing
the artists' works by attributing them to neuropsychiatric causes.
Other less-famous disease-plagued artists, such as the famous cat painter
whose paintings became more "electrical" in appearance as the painter's
schizophrenia progressed, are omitted.
Some of the articles have color figures showing examples of relevant artwork. Particularly poignant are the paintings by Carolus Horn showing gradual deterioration in visualspatial ability as Alzheimer's disease relentlessly destroyed his parietal and inferior temporal cortex. This was manifested as a reduction in sophistication, a decrease in the use of perspective, and reduction in detail. His paintings ultimately became little more than a childlike scribbling.
It's no secret that most doctors and scientists aren't very good writers. Many of the book's authors are not native English speakers. However, the dazzling prose and brilliant creativity of the subjects of this book makes the authors' writing seem even more plodding, humorless, and mundane by comparison. One exception is on page 71, in the article on Dostoevsky, where one author actually cracks a joke. According to these physicians, Dostoevsky probably suffered from epilepsy of the left mesiotemporal lobe, with complex-partial and secondary generalized seizures, following a relatively benign course, possibly triggered by an intercurrent illness in 1846. Of course, it's impossible to make a definitive diagnosis, partly because of the evident difficulty, if not in asking the patient questions, then in getting answers back from these late literary geniuses.
A bigger fault with the book is that the while authors are understandably not equipped to discuss the artists' work in depth, they also seem unusually reluctant to give the reader much information about the pathology of the diseases beyond the basic diagnosis. This would be disappointing to members of the larger audience that will be attracted to this book hoping to learn some basic neuropathology. I would hate to be a student in these guys' classes. A typical lecture might be: "Today's lesson is Alphonse Daudet. He probably had tabes dorsalis. It's a disease. Okay, lesson's over, exam tomorrow, bye!"
