I find I am but a bad anatomist.
--Attributed to Irish nationalist Wolfe Tone (1763-1798), after
mistakenly slashing his windpipe instead of his jugular vein on a suicide
attempt, as whispered to the doctor who had attended to him
You don't die of Parkinson disease, but you die with Parkinson disease.
--Dr. Leonardo Fugoso, movement-disorder specialist, St. Luke's Medical Center
I intend to rage, rage against the dying of the light.
--Raul S. Gonzalez, press secretary to Diosdado Macapagal
(not to be
confused with Gloria Arroyo's secretary of justice) and former
newspaper columnist, on coping with Parkinson disease.
Nag-suicide na nga, pinagtatawanan pa natin.
--Dr. Ruby Manalastas, psychiatrist at the St. Luke's Mood Disorders
Clinic, on how Filipinos laugh even on inappropriate occasions
Genius is a symptom of hereditary degeneration of the epileptoid variety, and is allied to moral insanity.
--Cesare Lombroso, 19th-century Italian physician and criminologist,
quoted--disapprovingly--in William James's The Varieties of Religious Experience (1902)
Because of my convictions, I must here confess that God only knows the number of patients who have gone to their graves prematurely by my fault.
--Ignác Semmelweis, 19th-century Hungarian obstetrician, some years after discovering
how to prevent puerperal fever, quoted in Sherwin Nuland's The Doctors' Plague (2003)
There was a time, whenever a
newborn was diagnosed to have an infection, his chances of survival were
already 50 percent.
--Dr. Jacinto Blas Mantaring, neonatologist
and associate professor of
clinical epidemiology at the University of the Philippines Manila, on the
problems of infections in neonatal-intensive-care units
In the Philippines, before the coming of the Spaniards, it was believed that a woman struck by seizures was called by the gods to be a priestess.
--Dr. Luciano Santiago, psychiatrist and historian, in the article "Rizal and
Philippine Psychiatry," published in the Philippine Journal of Psychiatry (2000)
Overall, the view of epilepsy conveyed in film continues to be distorted, sensationalized, and presented in most frightening ways.
--Jennie F. Kerson et al., in their paper "The Depiction of Seizures in Film,"
published in Epilepsia, August 1999
It is not for the medical profession to dictate or censor cinematic content. Nevertheless a keen eye on these depictions will help us to understand and perhaps to combat some of the stereotypes and myths that continue to surround epilepsy.
--Sallie Baxendale,
in her paper ""Epilepsy at the Movies: Possession to
Presidential Assassination," published in
Lancet Neurology, December 2003
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