This paper seeks to revise Kris's diagnosis and argues that Opicinus's constellation of symptoms align not with schizophrenia but rather with Geschwind Syndrome, a set of personality changes first described in association with temporal lobe epilepsy.
The symptoms outlined above all point not to schizophrenia but to a condition that might today more likely be recognized as Geschwind syndrome, conceivably touched off by a stroke in the left temporal lobe.
Walter Heinrichs and art historian Melanie Holcomb have independently suggested that a stroke would account for the principal symptoms of Opicinus's acute illness, but neither connected the possible stroke to the persistent behavioral and neurological changes associated with Geschwind Syndrome. (26)
It is highly plausible that Opicinus's feeling of being reborn and his concomitant religious zeal are both manifestations of the well documented hyper-religiosity associated with Geschwind Syndrome. Just as Opicinus attributed great importance to the new visions he received, patients with Geschwind Syndrome have been observed to attach similar mystical significance to experiences related to their own conditions.
Geschwind Syndrome is not simply associated with a deepened religiosity but a particularly manic mode of religious experience.
Hypergraphia is an essential symptom of Geschwind Syndrome. Unsurprisingly, given the typical sufferer's tendency toward religious excitation, this writing is often concerned with spiritual or moral issues.
Opicinus's description of his hand as executing his entire suite of extraordinarily complex drawings "without human assistance" does not align with any recognized stroke symptom or feature of Geschwind Syndrome. Nor does it clearly point to any other condition.
The patient begins "J'ecrit tout cela," ("I am writing all this,") but then seemingly begins again in order to correct himself, "Dieu avec ma propre main ecrit tout cela," ("God with my right hand is writing all this,")." (38) Even the mysterious dysfunction in Opicinus's right hand comports strongly with features of Geschwind Syndrome.
The evidence that Opicinus manifested Geschwind Syndrome resulting from a stroke rather than psychosis is suggestive, perhaps compelling.
One might consider Opicinus as a sufferer of Geschwind syndrome, for instance, in relation to Madeline Caviness's similarly posthumous diagnosis of twelfth century Hildegard of Bingen.
Similarly, I argue that the perspective on Opicinus afforded by Geschwind syndrome facilitates the recovery of Opicinus's authority in the production of his drawings.
(40) In particular, Fyodor Dostoyevsky was an epileptic who manifested the classic symptoms of Geschwind Syndrome. (41) While not a finished work, the appended page from Dostoyevsky's notebooks (Fig.