Canadian journal of psychiatry. Revue canadienne de psychiatrie
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Biography Historical Article
The wing of madness: the illness of Vincent van Gogh.
This paper briefly describes some aspects of Vincent van Gogh's life and attitudes. It discusses absinthe and several psychodynamic factors that may have contributed to his psychotic episodes at Arles, when he cut off his ear. It discusses Vincent's descriptions of his illness, especially at Saint Rémy de Provence and concludes that he probably suffered from partial complex seizures (temporal lobe epilepsy) with manic depressive mood swings aggravated by absinthe, brandy, nicotine and turpentine.
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This paper focuses on a series of adolescent suicides which occurred in a small rural community in Western Canada between December 1989 and June 1990. Risk factors for adolescent suicide and recent epidemiological data on cluster suicide are reviewed and discussed. The circumstances of the five adolescent suicides are then discussed, and the question of whether or not this was a cluster suicide is considered. This article supports the view that suicide is an abnormal response to stress or loss and emphasizes the role of genetic psychophysiological predisposition.