[Neurological disorders in the narrative works of Benito Pérez Galdós].
BACKGROUND
Benito Pérez Galdós was a realistic writer. As such, he was devoted to displaying reality in its full complexity. He shared the traits of experimental medicine of Claude Bernard (Introduction à l'étude de la médecine expérimentale). The writer was a close friend of famous contemporary doctors (Gregorio Marañón, Manuel Tolosa Latour), had textbooks with neurological content, and was familiar with Charcot.


METHODS
With this background, we have foreseen neurological descriptions in his works. To search for them, we have reviewed three paramount novels: Fortunata y Jacinta, La de Bringas and Tormento.


RESULTS
We found: a) headache, usually migraine with and without aura; common precipitants and inheritance are present. The novelist himself suffered from severe migraine; b) movement disorders: Parkinson syndrome and hemifacial spasm; c) convulsive and non-convulsive epilepsy in a girl as well as syncope and psychogenic loss of consciousness; d) congenital syphilis, based on a typical physical appearance in a character with madness (paranoid schizophrenia); the reason was probably that syphilis was regarded as the most common cause of "dementia praecox"; e) alcoholism: acute intoxication, deprivation, behavior disorders, hepatic encephalopathy and a likely pellagra; f) sleep disorders: parasomnias (somnambulism, somniloquy) and sleep paralysis, and g) stroke and also inverted metamorphopsia of psychogenic origin.


CONCLUSIONS
Ailments and disease pervaded life in the 19th century. Neurological disorders were highly prevalent and are fully integrated into Galdos realistic works. Many of them fulfill criteria of disorders contemplated according to degeneration theories. Nevertheless, humanitarian features raise the characters above their tragic destiny. Biographical factors, particularly his many love affairs and his political implication as a liberal, could have contributed to the plethora of precise descriptions.
Alvaro
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LC
Servicio de Neurología, Hospital de Basurto, Bilbao. lalvaro@hbas.osakidetza.net
Martín del Burgo
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A
D005197:Famous Persons; D005260:Female; D049672:History, 19th Century; D006801:Humans; D008093:Literature, Modern; D008297:Male; D009422:Nervous System Diseases / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000266:history