Main description:

Most of these occasional pieces, published over a period of almost 20 years and brought together for the first time in this volume, explore the interrelationships between neurology and literature, hence "neuroliterature". Both literary and clinical accounts share narrative structure, and the former may inform a clinician's understanding of the patient experience of disease. Creative writers without medical training may describe neurological disorders based on their careful observations of the human condition, permitting a fruitful exchange of ideas in this interdisciplinary subject area. This book may be of interest to both practising clinicians and students of literature.

Contents:

Foreword by Dr Christopher Gardner-Thorpe (President of the Faculty of the History and Philosophy of Medicine and Pharmacy, Worshipful Society of Apothecaries of London); Introduction; Patients; Antony van Leeuwenhoek (1632-1723): diaphragmatic flutter (respiratory myoclonus); Elizabeth Gaskell (1810-1865): "a habit of headaches" ; David Livingstone (1813-1873): uvulectomy; Charlotte Bronte (1816-1855): migraineur ; Fyodor Dostoevsky (1821-1881): epilepsy; Phineas Gage (1823-1860): the beginnings of neuropsychology; Louisa May Alcott (1832-1888): headache in fiction and fact; Francis Kilvert (1840-1879): a diarist's account of cluster headache?; Arthur Ransome (1884-1967): headache disorder; Jean Langlais (1907-1991): stroke-induced aphasia and Braille alexia without amusia; Margiad Evans (1909-1958): epilepsy in a creative writer; Roald Dahl (1916-1990): tales of the unexpected (neurological contributions); Doctors; Edward Jenner (1749-1823): on the intellect; Caleb Hillier Parry (1755-1822): neurological observations; Dr John Forbes (1787-1861) and the Brontes; Dr Samuel Gaskell (1807-1886): a medical and literary legacy?; Charles Dickens (1812-1870) qua neurologist; Reading David Livingstone (1813-1873); David Livingstone (1813-1873): some neurological observations; Lewis Carroll (Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, 1832-1898): an Oxford neurologist?; Gustav Nachtigal (1834-1885): contributions to the history of medicine in mid-nineteenth century Africa; Clifford Allbutt (1836-1925): an early account of neuromyelitis optica; Richard Caton (1842-1926): the beginnings of electroencephalography; Robert Lawson (ca. 1846-1896): alcoholic amnesia before Korsakoff; Charles Clouston (1847-1883) and Francis Kilvert; Charles Fere (1852-1907): neurological contributions; Arthur Conan Doyle (1859-1930): the neurology of Sherlock Holmes; Anton Chekhov (1860-1904): neurological disorders; Charles Thurstan Holland (1863-1941): a genealogical note; Alois Alzheimer (1864-1915): the 100th anniversary of his first case; Solomon Carter Fuller (1872-1953): early accounts of Alzheimer's disease; Howard Knox (1885-1949): a pioneer of neuropsychological testing; Diseases; Shakespeare and epilepsy: has Iago deceived again?; Synaesthesia in Swift's Gulliver's Travels (1726); An early account of brain transplantation; Some accounts of Tourette syndrome and obsessive compulsive disorder; Headache in the works of Jane Austen (1775-1817); Headache in the works of Elizabeth Gaskell (1810-1865); Progressive supranuclear palsy described by Dickens; Charles Dickens and epilepsy; The neurology of Alice, with particular reference to Humpty Dumpty's prosopagnosia; Some accounts of childhood paraplegia; Illusory visual spread described by Margiad Evans; Lycanthropy: from Homer to the present day; Neurological literature: Headache; Neurological literature: Epilepsy; Neurological literature: Cognitive disorders; Neurological literature: Sleep-related disorders; Neurological literature: Neurophysiology; Neurological literature: Render's syndrome; Neurology at the movies; Parkinson's disease before James Parkinson; GBS100: some literary and historical accounts.