It is much more important to know what sort of a patient has a disease, than what sort of disease a patient has. William Osler Suzanne O'Sullivan is a neurologist, who looks after people with brain diseases. She is also fascinated by psychosomatic disorders - seizures, paralysis, blindness - disabilities that originate more in the mind than in the structure of the brain. Hysteria by another name. Medical conditions that people find so shameful that they often exist below the radar. Or they are given labels that make them more acceptable or more difficult to spot. Some believe that hysteria is rare. Any neurologist will tell you it isn't. They see a form of it in every clinic, on every working day. For those like O'Sullivan, who are drawn to it, sightings are not restricted to the clinic. It is everywhere. And this is how she learned about Andrei, and the 424 other children in Sweden like him, children who have fallen into a state of apathy, a waking coma, some for...

The Sleeping Beauties: And Other Stories of Mystery Illness PDF

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