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"Yes, I got in touch with a specialist and asked him if he knew of any such cases. His answer surprised me a bit, but let me just remind you that medicine has its mysteries. Do you remember the story I told you about the boy who goes out to buy five apples and returns with two?"
"Yes, and how he might have lost them or given them away, or else they might have turned out to be more expensive than expected, etc. Don't worry, I know there are no absolute answers. But, first, did Joan of Arc suffer from epilepsy?"
"Oddly enough, my friend mentioned her during our conversation. Joan of Arc started hearing voices when she was thirteen. Her statements reveal that she saw lights, which is one of the symptoms of an attack. According to the neurologist, Dr. Lydia Bayne, the warrior-saint's ecstatic experiences were caused by what we now call musicogenic epilepsy, which is provoked by hearing a particular kind of sound or music: in Joan's case, it was the sound of bells. Were you there when the boy had a fit?"
"Yes."
"Was there any music playing?"
"I can't remember. But even if there was, the clatter of cutlery and the buzz of conversation would have drowned it out."
"Did he seem tense?"
"Yes, very."
"That's another thing that can provoke an attack. Epilepsy has been around for longer than you might think. In Mesopotamia, there are remarkably accurate descriptions of what they called 'the falling sickness,' which was followed by convulsions. Ancient people believed that it was caused by demons invading a person's body; only much later on did the Greek Hippocrates relate these convulsions to some dysfunction of the brain. Even so, epileptics are still the victims of prejudice."
"I'm sure. I was absolutely terrified when it happened."
"You mentioned the word prophecy, and so I asked my friend to concentrate his researches in that area. According to him, most scientists agree that, although a lot of famous people have suffered from epilepsy, the disease itself does not confer greater or lesser powers on anyone. Nevertheless, the more famous epileptics did succeed in persuading other people to see their fits as having a mystical aura."
"Give me an example of some famous epileptics."
"Napoleon, Alexander the Great, Dante...I didn't make a full list, since what you were interested in was the boy's prophecy. What's his name, by the way?"
"You don't know him, and since you've nearly always got another appointment to go to, perhaps you'd better just finish your explanation."
"All right. Medical scientists who study the Bible are sure that the apostle Paul was an epileptic. They base this on the fact that, on the road to Damascus, he saw a brilliant light near him which caused him to fall to the ground, leaving him temporarily blind and unable to eat or drink for some days. In medical terms, this is known as 'temporal lobe epilepsy.'"
"I don't think the church would agree."
"I'm not even sure that I agree, but that's what the medical literature says. Other epileptics develop their self-destructive side, as was the case with van Gogh. He described his convulsions as 'the storm within.' In Saint-Remy, where he was a patient, one of the nurses saw him having a convulsive seizure."
"At least he managed in his paintings to transform his self-destruction into a reconstruction of the world."
"Some people suspect that Lewis Carroll wrote Alice in Wonderland in order to describe his own experiences of epilepsy. The story at the beginning of the book, when Alice falls down a black hole, is an experience familiar to most epileptics. During her journey through Wonderland, Alice often sees things flying and she herself feels very light--another very precise description of the effects of an epileptic attack."
"So it would seem epileptics have a propensity for art."
"Not at all, it's just that because artists tend to become famous, art and epilepsy become linked in people's minds. Literature is full of examples of writers with a suspected or confirmed diagnosis of epilepsy: Moliere, Edgar Allan Poe, Flaubert.... Dostoevsky had his first attack when he was nine years old, and said that it brought him moments when he felt utterly at peace with the world as well as moments of terrible depression. Don't take all of this too seriously, and don't go thinking that you might develop
epilepsy because of your accident. I haven't come across a single case of epilepsy being caused by colliding with a motorbike."
"As I said, this is someone I actually know."
"Does the boy with the predictions really exist or did you invent all this simply because you think you might have passed out when you stepped off the pavement?"
"On the contrary, I hate knowing about illnesses. Whenever I read a medical book, I immediately start to get all the symptoms."
"Let me tell you something, but please don't take it the wrong way. I think this accident did you a lot of good. You seem calmer, less obsessed. A brush with death always helps us to live our lives better; that's what your wife told me when she gave me a bit of bloodstained fabric, which I always carry with me, even though, as a doctor, I see death, close to, every day."
"Did she say why she gave you the cloth?"
"She was very generous in her description of my work. She said that I was capable of combining technique with intuition, discipline with love. She told me that a soldier, before he died, had asked her to take his blood-soaked shirt, cut it into pieces, and share those pieces among people who were genuinely trying to reveal the world as it is. I imagine you, with all your books, must also have a bit of this shirt."
"No, I haven't."
"Do you know why?"
