Arquivos de Neuro-Psiquiatria (Sep 2024)

An essay on the Charcot and Richer hysteria: from charcoal drawings to cell phones

  • Marlon Wycliff Caeira,
  • Leo Coutinho,
  • Igor Abrahim Nascimento,
  • Luciano de Paola,
  • Hélio Afonso Ghizoni Teive

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1055/s-0044-1789229
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 82, no. 09
pp. 001 – 004

Abstract

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Hysteria, previously also known as the disease of the womb, has moved from being a woman's illness through the medieval times' stigma of demonic possession, to the modern concept of a functional neurological disorder. Interestingly to the present assay, Charcot (1825–1893) and Richer (1849–1933) described, in their 1887 work Les Démoniaques dans l'art, by means of iconography, semiological aspects of the so-called Grande Attaque Hystérique, which resembles features of psychogenic nonepileptic seizures emulating grand mal epileptic seizures. The aim of the present assay is to describe how those charcoal iconographic representations evolved through history and are nowadays portrayed in videos recorded at epilepsy monitoring units and patients' cell phones.

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