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Familial temporal-lobe epilepsy

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 July 1999

Neil Gordon
Affiliation:
Huntlywood, 3 Styal Road, Wilmslow, SK9 4AE, UK.
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Abstract

Although no references can be given, the following experience is firmly established in the author's memory as a true account, and has certainly always focused his interest on the possible diagnosis of familial temporal epilepsy. Many years ago on a tour of Longleat House, Wiltshire, a guide pointed out a painting of a woman in an advanced stage of pregnancy. Apparently she had asked to be painted at that time because she was sure that she would die in childbirth (which, in fact, she did). The guide added that this woman was also well known for meeting herself in the passages of Longleat House. A few years later, when working in London as a neurological registrar, the author was reading a newspaper when he noted a paragraph describing the conversion of Holland House, London. A number of paintings from the house were described, including one of a woman, again well known for seeing an image of herself in the passages of this building. It eventually transpired that these women were sisters; and there seemed to be a possibility that they both suffered from heautoscopic hallucinations, in which sufferers see themselves carrying out some kind of action, and which are known to occur during complex partial seizures arising in the temporal lobes.

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Copyright
© 1999 Mac Keith Press

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