"The books and the night", neurological perspective on Jorge Luis Borges' blindness

The works of Argentinian scholar Jorge Luis Borges (1899-1986) have captivated physicians. An assiduous reader, he was given, with magnificent irony, "books and the night". Borges suffered from chronic and irreversible blindness, which influenced much of his work and has been the subject of different literary and diagnostic analyses from the ophthalmological point of view. However, the characteristics of his visual impairment have escaped the neurological approach, which is why we reviewed his work looking for data suggesting a concomitant brain injury. On his autobiography, he recounts how, during an episode of septicemia, he suffered hallucinations and loss of speech; in addition, in some poems and essays he describes data that suggest "phantom chromatopsia", a lesion of cortical origin. After that accident, Borges survived with a radical change in literary style. Although a precise diagnosis is impossible, his literary work allows recognizing some elements in favor of concomitant brain involvement.

Hitler's hysterical blindness: fact or fiction? / A cegueira histérica de Hitler: fato ou ficção?

This article deals with a little known episode that occurred near the end of the Great War in a military reserve hospital located in the small town of Pasewalk, part of the distant region of Pomerania in northern Poland. The story is centered around the transient visual loss of a 29-year-old Austrian messenger of the 16th Bavarian Infantry Regiment. His name: Adolf Hitler.

Este artigo trata de um episódio mal conhecido, ocorrido próximo ao final da Primeira Grande Guerra, em um hospital militar da reserva, situado na pequena cidade de Pasewalk, na distante região da Pomerania ao norte da Polônia. No centro desta história, a perda visual transitória de um cabo austríaco de 29 anos, mensageiro do 16º Regimento Bávaro de Infantaria. Seu nome: Adolf Hitler.

La enfermedad neurológica de Georg Friedrich Hãndel / The neurological disorder of Georg Friedrich Hãndel

Georg Friedrich Hãndel, a musical genius, was affected since his middle age by several attacks, during a period of 20 years, of upper right limb palsies, abnormal speech followed by amaurosis in his contralateral eye and then is both eyes. He underwent three unsuccessful operations due to a wrong diagnosis of cataracts. We discuss the possible differential diagnoses. Considering his clear vascular profile, the most plausible hypothesis is cerebrovascular disease with embolic infarcts from stenotic left internal carotid artery to the left middle cerebral and retinal arteries.

Amaurosis fugax / Amaurosis fugax

La amaurosis fugax es considerada una ceguera monocular transitoria secundaria a isquemia por embolización o insuficiencia vascular que representa un síntoma de enfermedades sistémicas cuyos mecanismos fisiopatológicos incluyen además trombosis, inflamación vascular, hipotensión o vasoespasmo. Su diagnóstico requiere de estudio de laboratorio e imagen para conocer la causa y algunas veces poder ofrecer tratamiento oportuno a los individuos que presentan estos episodios

Prevençäo da cegueira no Brasil: uma contribuiçäo à sua história / Prevention against blindness in Brazil: a contribution to its history

O presente trabalho consiste num exame dos conteúdos das publicaçöes de três revistas em Oftalmologia, desde a primeira publicaçäo até o ano de 1990 e de dois anais de Congressos de Prevençäo da Cegueira. A pesquisa foi manual e procurou identificar em cada revista os trabalhos que tratavam de prevençäo e qual entendimento era adotado, se para a busca de se impedir a instalaçäo do mal ou aquela que visa apenas evitar as sequelas. A análise foi minuciosa e procurou contextualizar historicamente (1930 a 1990) os dados encontrados