Title |
Seneca and the First Description of Anton Syndrome |
Creator |
Charles André, MD, PhD |
Affiliation |
Department of Neurology (CA), Faculdade de Medicina, Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; and Department of Neurology, Sinapse Neurologia e Reabilitação (CA), Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. |
Abstract |
Seneca was a Roman philosopher, politician, and mentor to the young Nero. He later fell in disgrace and was sentenced to death by the Emperor. Seneca left many texts, one of the most influential being his Moral Letters to Lucilius (63 CE). In Letter 50, he describes the case of Harpaste, his wife's foolish slave who acutely became blind. She denied her illness and argued irrationally about room darkness, constantly asking attendants to change her quarters. Harpaste's case, consisting of acutely acquired blindness and anosognosia in the presence of relatively well-preserved cognition, fulfills the clinical criteria for the diagnosis of Anton syndrome, and probably constitutes its first description. |
Subject |
Blindness, Cortical / history; History, Medieval; Humans; Italy; Ophthalmology / history |
Date |
2018-12 |
Language |
eng |
Format |
application/pdf |
Type |
Text |
Publication Type |
Journal Article |
Source |
Journal of Neuro-Ophthalmology, December 2018, Volume 38, Issue 4 |
Collection |
Neuro-Ophthalmology Virtual Education Library: Journal of Neuro-Ophthalmology Archives: https://novel.utah.edu/jno/ |
Publisher |
Lippincott, Williams & Wilkins |
Holding Institution |
Spencer S. Eccles Health Sciences Library, University of Utah |
Rights Management |
© North American Neuro-Ophthalmology Society |
ARK |
ark:/87278/s6g78fpn |
Setname |
ehsl_novel_jno |
ID |
1500783 |
Reference URL |
https://collections.lib.utah.edu/ark:/87278/s6g78fpn |