The disease of the apostle Paul of Tarsus: psychological, ophtalmic or neurological?
Keywords:
Parkinson, Parkinsonismo, Religión, San PabloAbstract
The biblical character Paul of Tarsus claimed to suffer some disease: “You know that because of a disease of the body I announced the gospel to you at the beginning […] For the test that my body had […]” (Galatians 4.13-14). His first clinical frame coincided with his conversion and subsequently presented symptoms related to Parkinson’s disease or parkinsonism. Due to this condition, he suffered motors inconveniences as tremor, rigidity, postural instability, weakness as well as non-motors as cognitive changes, and visual and auditory hallucinations, who determined several diagnoses between ophthalmological, neurological, psychiatric, psychological, sociological, and surgical, who tried to come up with a theory to explain his pathology.
Downloads
References
Biblia Plenitud. Santa Biblia. Versión Reina Valera, 1960. Nashville, Tennessee, Estados Unidos de América: Grupo Nelson. 2008.
Landsborough D. St Paul and Temporal Lobe Epilepsy. J. Neurol., Neurosurg., Psych., 1987; 50: 659-664.
Masia SL, Devinsky O. Epilepsy and Behavior: A Brief History. Epil. Behav., 2000; 1: 27-36. https://doi.org/10.1006/ebeh.1999.0021.
Devinsky O, Lai G. Spirituality and Religion in Epilepsy. Epil. Behav., 2008; 12: 636-643.
Muhammed L. A Retrospective Diagnosis of Epilepsy in Three Historical Figures: St Paul, Joan of Arc and Socrates. J. Med. Biorgr., 2013; 21(4): 208-211. https://doi.org/10.1177/0967772013479757.
Bullock JD. Was Saint Paul Struck Blind and Converted by Lightning? Surv. Ophthalmol., 1994; 39(2): 151-160.
Rempel MH. Daybreak 68: Nietzsche’s Psychohistory of the Pre-Damascus Paul. J. Nietzsche Stud., 1998; 15: 50-58.
Sacks O. Despertares (5.ª ed.). Madrid: Anagrama. 2005.
Manzarbeitia Valle S. San Pablo. Rev. Dig. Iconogr. Med., 2015; 7(14): 39-61. https://www.ucm.es/bdiconografiamedieval/san-pablo
García Ruiz PJ. Neurología bíblica. Rev. Neurol., 1996;24(129): 580-581.
García Ruiz PJ. Prehistoria de la enfermedad de Parkinson. Neurología, 2004; 19(10): 735-737.
Turliuc S, Costea C, Cucu A, Dumitrescu A, Dumitrescu G, Turliuc D. Biblical Descriptions of Spinal Neurological and Neurosurgical Pathology. Roman. Neurosurg., 2016; 30(3). https://doi.org/10.1515/romneu-2016-0056.
Diéguez-Campa C, Pérez-Neri I. De los orígenes de la parálisis agitante al desarrollo de un modelo experimental para su estudio. Arch. Neurocienc., 2017; 22(3): 73-77.
Deutschländer AB, Ross OA, Dickson DW, Wszolek ZK. Atypical Parkinsonian Syndromes: A General Neurologist’s Perspective. Eur. J. Neurol., 2018; 25(1): 41-58. https://doi.org/10.1111/ene.13412.
Bigman, DY, Bobrin BD. Von Economo’s Disease and Postencephalitic Parkinsonism Responsive to Carbidopa and Levodopa. Neuropsychiatr Dis. Treat., 2018; 14: 927- 931. https://doi.org/10.2147/NDT.S153313.
Osborne RE. St. Paul’s Silent Years. J. Bibl. Literat., 1965; 84(1): 59-65. Retrieved 09-03-2019, from www.jstor.org/stable/3264073.
Rodríguez Martín YN, Pola Alvarado L, Juvier Riesgo T, Cabal Rodríguez R, Soto Labastida A, Pérez García E. Manifestaciones neurooftalmológicas en la enfermedad de Parkinson. Rev. Cub. Oftalmol., 2013; 26(1): 170-179. http://scielo.sld.cu/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S086421762013000100017&lng=es.
Diederich NJ, Stebbins G, Schiltz C, Goetz CG. Are Patients with Parkinson’s Disease Blind to Blindsight? Brain, 2014; 137(6):1838-1849. https://doi.org/10.1093/brain/awu094.
Ekker MS, Janssen S, Seppi K et al. Ocular and Visual Disorders in Parkinson’s Disease: Common but Frequently Overlooked. Parkinsonism Relat. Disord., 2017; 40: 1-10. DOI: 10.1016/j.parkreldis.2017.02.014.
Inzelberg R., Kipervasser S. & Korczyn A. D. Auditory hallucinations in Parkinson´s disease. J. Neurol. Neurosurg. Psychiatry, 1998; 65: 533-535. https://doi.org/10.1136/jnnp.64.4.533.
Eversfield CL, Orton LD. Auditory and Visual Hallucination Prevalence in Parkinson’s Disease and Dementia with Lewy Bodies: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis. Psychol. Med., 49: 2342-2353. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0033291718003161.
Murray ED, Cunningham MG, Price BH. The Role of Psychotic Disorders in Religious History Considered. J. Neuropsych. Clin. Neurosci., 2012; 24(4): 410-426. https://doi.org/10.1176/appi.neuropsych.11090214.
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2022 Mario Josué Sandoval Falconi

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.