The neurology of literature

The confines of this chapter are necessarily arbitrary. Its limits are partly imposed by the extent of my reading (all the references have been read in full!) and partly by the restrictions of space - as a consequence of that restriction there are innumerable examples which I have been unable to cover. I have concentrated, though not exclusively, on the literature of the 19th century. There is much neurology in the modern novel, but the accessibility afforded by the internet and other sources to accounts of neurological symptoms and diseases allows a present-day author an access that can bypass personal experience. Of greater interest are those descriptions of neurological disorders which coincided with, or even ante-dated, their appearance in the medical literature. My reading has been in English, but has extended to works translated from Spanish, French, German and Russian. I have concentrated on a small group of neurological conditions whose descriptions are of particular interest in the depth of observation they display, a depth suggesting they have stemmed from first-hand experience. They are grouped under the headings of cerebrovascular disease, syncopal attacks and epilepsy.