Did Dostoevsky have a primary sleep disorder besides epilepsy?
| Autor: | Valery Avtukh, Howard W. Sander, Sudhansu Chokroverty |
|---|---|
| Rok vydání: | 2007 |
| Předmět: |
Male
Literature Modern Sleep disorder medicine.medical_specialty History Famous Persons Medicine in Literature media_common.quotation_subject History 19th Century General Medicine Epileptic attack medicine.disease Genius Russia Epilepsy Epilepsy Complex Partial Fyodor Sleep Disorders Circadian Rhythm medicine Humans Epilepsy Generalized Psychiatry Medical literature Sleep problem media_common |
| Zdroj: | Sleep Medicine. 8:281-283 |
| ISSN: | 1389-9457 |
| Popis: | There is no documentation in the medical literature that the famous Russian novelist of the 19th century, Fyodor Mikhaylovich Dostoevsky Fig. 1, suffered from a possible primary sleep disorder, although there are passing references to his sleep problem. In contrast, there is considerable documentation about the existence of epilepsy in Dostoevsky [1,2]. Dostoevsky was born on October 30, 1821, and died on January 20, 1881, at the age of 59. His first novel Poor Folk was published when he was 24 years old. Later, at the age of 28, he was arrested and deported to Siberia because of his association with the free-thinking ‘‘Petrashevsky Circle’’. Dostoevsky most likely had his first epileptic attack at the age of 25, shortly after finishing his first novel Poor Folk. However, it was in 1850, while in Siberia at the age of 29, that Dostoevsky had his first documented seizure [2]. Major Ermakov, a doctor at the Seventh Battalion in Siberia, wrote an official report: ‘‘. . .in 1850, he was struck for the first time by a seizure . . .’’ Henri Gastaut, in his William G. Lennox lecture in 1977 [1], stated that detailed knowledge about Dostoevsky’s epilepsy was available in descriptions of seizures provided by Dostoevsky’s physicians, friends, family and by the man himself. These seizures were particularly intense and occurred from adolescence until death, predominantly in the early part of his sleep – without interfering with the development of his genius. The seizures varied from twice a day to one every four months, with an average of one a month over approximately 35 years |
| Databáze: | OpenAIRE |
| Externí odkaz: |
|
Full Text from ScienceDirect