"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.

Henrique Dumont: how a traumatic brain injury contributed to the development of the airplane / Henrique Dumont: como um traumatismo cranioencefálico contribuiu para o desenvolvimento do avião

ABSTRACT The life and death of Henrique Dumont (1832-1892) is little known, being usually remembered as Alberto Santos-Dumont's father. This report describes the history of this Brazilian engineer, also known as the King of Coffee, who achieved enormous business success and fortune in the late nineteenth century. In 1890, during the inspection of his farm, the world's largest coffee plantation at that time, he fell from a carriage, which left him a hemiplegic. This forced him to sell the farm and move to France for treatment. Before his death two years later, he gave his 18-year-old son bits of advice, and distributed his inheritance, which allowed Alberto to study in Paris and finance his experiments that would culminate in the development of the airplane. The diagnostic and therapeutic possibilities are also discussed.

RESUMO A vida e especialmente a morte do brasileiro Henrique Dumont (1832-1892) são pouco conhecidas, sendo geralmente lembrado como pai de Alberto Santos Dumont. Relatamos a história deste engenheiro que obteve enorme sucesso empresarial no final do século XIX, sendo denominado Rei do Café. Em 1890, durante a inspeção da sua fazenda, maior cafeicultura do mundo na época, caiu da charrete e ficou hemiplégico. Isso o fez vender a fazenda e buscar tratamento na França, trazendo o primeiro automóvel do Brasil ao retornar. Antes de morrer dois anos após o acidente, deu valorosos conselhos e distribuiu sua herança ao filho Alberto, então com dezoito anos de idade, que pôde assim estudar em Paris e financiar seus experimentos que culminariam no desenvolvimento do avião. São discutidas e contemporizadas as possibilidades diagnósticas e terapêuticas relacionadas ao déficit neurológico.