Epilepsy and stigma: An approach to understanding through the life and works of the Brazilian writer Machado de Assis (1839–1908)

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• 作者：Elza M&#xe1 ; rcia Targas Yacubian ; ^a ; ^{yacubian@terra.com.br} ; Luis Ot&#xe1 ; vio Sales Ferreira Caboclo^a
• 关键词：Stigma ; Epilepsy ; Machado de Assis ; Epilepsy in literature ; History of epilepsy
• 刊名：Epilepsy & Behavior
• 出版年：2011
• 出版时间：March 2011
• 年：2011
• 卷：20
• 期：3
• 页码：465-470
• 全文大小：637 K

文摘

Machado de Assis (1839–1908)—novelist, short story writer, essayist, and poet—is a fascinating personality. Had he written in French, English, German, or Italian, he would have achieved universal fame and would be in the same company as Balzac, Tolstoy, Dickens, and Dostoevsky. This article discusses stigma in epilepsy through Machado de Assis’ life, literary work, and letters to other Brazilian writers. Founder of the Brazilian Academy of Letters, Machado offers an insoluble enigma to psychologists and essayists. Born in stark poverty, feeble, and ugly, he had to fight the taint of epilepsy. The documentation of epilepsy in Machado de Assis’ texts and letters and the testimony of his contemporaries is unique, allowing the comprehension of scientific concepts and stigma related to epilepsy in the 19th century, when the positivist ideas of the Italian neuropsychiatrist Cesare Lombroso (1835–1909) permeated nascent Brazilian neuropsychiatry. Much of the stigma associated with epilepsy we witness today emerged from these concepts. Even today in Brazil, when barbaric crimes are committed, headlines in newspapers produced by forensic psychiatrists often attribute the conduct of the criminal to epileptic behavior.