Wednesday, July 25, 2018

What Can Odd, Interesting Medical Case Studies Teach Us? - The New York Times

Late one evening in the medical library of the hospital where I work, I opened The Lancet, the medical journal, and came across a case report written by the neurologist-writer Oliver Sacks and colleagues. "In July 2011, a 52-year-old woman presented to our psychiatric outpatient clinic in The Hague with a lifelong history of seeing people's faces change into dragonlike faces."

Hooked, I continued: "She could perceive and recognize actual faces, but after several minutes, they turned black, grew long, pointy ears and a protruding snout and displayed a reptiloid skin and huge eyes in bright yellow, green, blue or red. She saw similar dragonlike faces drifting toward her many times a day from the walls, electrical sockets or the computer screen."

More ...

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/17/magazine/what-can-odd-interesting-medical-case-studies-teach-us.html