08.04.2019: Kafka's short story The Metamorphosis reminds us of our vulnerability and how we may all find ourselves alienated. 'One morning, as Gregor Samsa was waking up from anxious dreams, he discovered that in bed he had been changed into a monstrous verminous bug.' This is the first line of the famous short story The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka (1). The insect scenario in the story is absurd, but appeals to a general human fear: what if I should fall ill, what if I should find myself excluded, what if I suddenly should become unable to earn a living? From being the son and main breadwinner in a...

10.12.2018: The author Edgar Allan Poe is one of many artists who describe how it feels to live with major, involuntary changes of consciousness. Are the large upturns and downturns in his life attributable to a neurological conditions, or can substance use and depressive thoughts explain these fluctuations? The life and health of Edgar Allan Poe (1809–49) were out of the ordinary and may perhaps have left their mark in his subtle way of expressing himself. The contemplations in the famous poem A Dream Within a Dream (1849) may be regarded as a backdrop to the final years of his life. Speculations on the...

09.12.2014: Through the ages, people with epilepsy have been subject to stigmatisation. To what extent is this still a reality? The depiction of epilepsy in contemporary popular music may reflect these attitudes. Throughout our history, epilepsy has remained a disease associated with stigmatisation (1, 2). To obtain an impression of popular notions of epilepsy in our time we can study, for example, modern cultural communication, in our case music. Music lyrics can reflect current attitudes, often quite directly and without embellishment. Moreover, it provides an insight into what is in fact permitted in...

27.03.2012: Apart from tuberculosis and syphilis, few diseases have been as steeped in myth as epilepsy. The generalised tonic-clonic seizure has been associated with phenomena ranging from divine powers and possession by spirits to mental and moral depravity, and this has been chronicled and described extensively in fiction and feature films. In this article I will attempt to provide a brief overview of the ways in which characters with epilepsy have been portrayed in these media. Because aspects of medical history are so significant in this context, the examples are largely presented in chronological...

27.03.2012: During the 1880s, Edvard Munch painted a number of portraits of his family members. His father and brother were both obviously complacent models. Of his brother, who later became a doctor, eight portraits exist. Five of them are privately owned, and have been traded on the private art market in recent years. Peter Andreas Munch (1 July 1865 – 15 December 1895) was the third child of Laura (1837 – 1868) and Christian Munch (1817 – 1889). The couple had five children over a short period, two boys and three girls: Johanne Sophie (born 1862), Edvard (born 1863), Peter Andreas (born 1865), Laura...

18.12.2008: There is considerable disease and death in the works of Henrik Ibsen (1828 – 1906), affecting children and adults alike. Even when adults are the main characters, children and adolescents play important parts. The most famous children who die, are Hedvig in Vildanden – The Wild Duck (1884) and Eyolf in Lille Eyolf – Little Eyolf (1894). Literary people like to refer to this as «Kindermord». This is a notion which is repeated in the research of Ibsen in several languages, expressing the fact that children die, more or less, as a direct result of the parents being inadequate (1) – (6). An...

13.03.2008: Our interest in this painting goes back many years to when it was mentioned in articles on pioneer surgeons (1) – (3). As we are interested in medical and surgical history, we have provided one another with literature about this painting, for which possible errors in Rembrandt’s anatomical lines has been an object of debate among surgeons and anatomists since the 1920s (4) – (12). The painting was by then world famous after an American cigar merchant had used it to decorate his cigar boxes (Dutch Masters) (3). It was also used on the title page in several editions of the famous Grant’s anatomy...