Tag: epilepsy
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The invisible manager
Javishkar ReddyJohannesburg, South Africa When I was twelve, I was hit on the head by a cricket ball. A few days later, I had my first seizure. Over the years, I have had many attacks, which have resulted in three chipped teeth, a cracked skull, a dislocated shoulder, and my tongue bitten several times. A…
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Alzheimer and his disease
JMS PearceHull, England “Fortiter in re, suaviter in modo (powerfully in deed, gently in manner).”— Franz Nissl’s description of Alzheimer (1916) Curiously, until the 1970s the high prevalence Alzheimer’s disease was not recognized as the most common cause of dementia.1 Most demented patients until then were labeled as having cerebral arteriosclerosis, or as sufferers from…
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Of Mice and Men: A differential diagnosis for Lennie Small
Howard FischerUppsala, Sweden In John Steinbeck’s 1937 novel Of Mice and Men,1 the two main characters work as itinerant laborers on farms and ranches in California during the Great Depression. Their only attachments are to each other. George is “small and quick” with “sharp, strong features,” while his companion, Lennie, is “a huge man, shapeless…
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John Hughlings Jackson
JMS PearceHull, England “. . . A man among the little band of whom are Aristotle and Newton and Darwin.” -Gustave I. Schorstein (1863-1906), physician at the London Hospital The magnitude of Hughlings Jackson’s contributions to medicine is almost impossible to encapsulate. He was the foremost figure of nineteenth-century British neurology. He has enjoyed numerous…
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Harriet Tubman, Joan of Arc, and Moses
Faraze A. NiaziJack E. Riggs Morgantown, West Virginia, United States Listen to my words: “When there is a prophet among you, I, the LORD, reveal myself to them in visions, I speak to them in dreams. Numbers 12:6 (NIV) “Harriet and Joan, what topic has your two fine souls so deeply engrossed?” “Moses, we were discussing recent hurtful…
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Beauty in breaking
Lealani AcostaNashville, Tennessee, United States I had a succulent hanging from my office cabinet, suspended in a clear teardrop-shaped terrarium: its spiny green arches floated above a mound of fake snow, which I intermittently illuminated by touching the built-in switch that electrified interwoven fairy lights. It was a Christmas present from James’s sister. She had come…
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Theodor Kocher (1841–1917)
Theodor Kocher was the first surgeon to ever receive the Nobel Prize. He was born in 1841 in Bern, Switzerland, went to school there, and was first in his class. He studied medicine in Bern and graduated summa cum laude, then went on to further his education in Zürich, Berlin, London, and Paris. At the…
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Blood is the life
Saameer Pani Sydney, Australia Vampire—the very word itself conjures up images of supernatural creatures who look not unlike you and me, prowl about at night, prey on unsuspecting souls, and sink their fangs into innumerable, hapless victims to quench their thirst for blood. Monstrous but beautiful, repulsive yet magnetic, vampires have fascinated us for centuries…
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Catalepsy
Catalepsy has been defined as a trance or seizure with a loss of sensation and consciousness accompanied by rigidity of the body. It may occur in neurological diseases such as Parkinsonism and epilepsy, also following the withdrawal from certain drugs such as cocaine. These images are part of a series of observations made in an…
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William Richard Gowers MD., FRS.
JMS PearceHull, England The name Gowers is a name hallowed in the minds of most neurologists as one of the great founders of neurological medicine in the Victorian era. He is probably best remembered for his A Manual of Diseases of the Nervous System (1886) (Fig 1.), a rich source of wisdom and clinical description…