I love that line from Geraldine. Flip Wilson makes her say it when she has to do things over which she has no control. "The devil made me buy that dress. He put a gun to my head. I had to buy it." It is a handy excuse. The "Twinkie" defense was built on Dan White's low blood sugar when he killed the San Francisco mayor years ago. An ex-patient of mine robbed a bank on an empty stomach. I tried to shorten his sentence as he promised to eat every three hours, but he was stuck for 11 years. But what of those who seem to have a normal blood sugar, a good up-bringing in a loving home, and normal intelligence, and yet they seem to be overtaken with some odd feelings, bizarre symptoms, or they behave in peculiar ways?
A neurologist told me that he treated a girl back in 1938 for a type of epilepsy triggered by -- get this -- sad cowboy music. You remember Bing Crosby singing, "I'm heading for the last roundup." Every time she heard this she would stop, stare, and then fall to the ground in a grand mal convulsion. She was a beautiful girl and loved to dance, but had to run to the ladies' room when the band leader would announce, "The Last Roundup." Several drugs did nothing but make her groggy, so the neurologist supplied her with a battery-driven static maker connected to a plug in her ear. When she knew the sad music was to be played, she just turned up the noisemaker and it drowned out the epileptogenic music -- hard to believe.
Here's another one: A two-year-old boy discovered that if he looked through the mesh of the back screen door during April and May at about nine to ten in the a.m., he would have an exciting -- to him -- grand mal convulsion. It was not pollens, or food, or low blood sugar; it was a visually induced seizure. He got some sadomasochistic delight out of the seizures and used to run to the back door every sunny day in the spring. Drugs were worthless. The doctors fitted him with glasses with polarized lenses so the light pattern was changed. Results? No more seizures.
I was reminded of these two cases when I read recently in the New England Journal of Medicine of a woman who was overcome by strange sensations when she heard the voice of a television hostess. It was not anything that the lady said on the program, it was a unique pattern or a vibration in her voice that touched off some brain waves that produced, in the victim, feelings of nausea, pressure in her head, and mental confusion, like spaciness. The EEG revealed an abnormal pattern when the woman listened to that TV show in the laboratory.
How many of us have friends, clients, or relatives that we cannot stand? Their voices are like fingernails running down the chalkboard. Do you remember the professors who put you to sleep at the 1 p.m. lecture? I'll bet you have a patient or two who gives you a migraine or a colon cramp. How many of you have cousins who give you a headache, nauseate you, and put you in a trance-like state? The next time your spouse asks you to visit some distant cousin and insists that you can "rise to the occasion," mention that Dr. smith said you might have a fit.
Lendon H. Smith, M.D.,
Portland, Oregon
Dr. Smith offers a fascinating and often hilarious, information-packed monthly newsletter available via subscription for $12 U.S., $14 U.S. (Can), $16 foreign (other). Just send your check payable to:
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