Kramer, "Menstrual
epileptoid psychosis in an adolescent girl," American Journal of Diseases of Children, vol.
The autistic narrator has the added burden of an actual malady, which skews things inevitably--it can turn him deeply rageful, as when Todd gets his "volts," which are nearly
epileptoid in their fury--or when, despite his apparent innocence, he has to deal with the social shame of looking and behaving differently, a fact that filters in to his consciousness despite his seeming indifference to it.
The stark closing shots of Carrie's subconvulsive twitching, her jaw agonizingly clenched around a baby-blue bite plate, only served up a gentler, kinder version of Hollywood's standard ECT
epileptoid extravaganza.
He thought that the typical hysterical episode followed a given sequence: first came the "
epileptoid" fit, preceded by an aura; second "clownism" with exaggerated "athletic" movements; then "passionate attitudes," in which poses were struck enacting extreme emotions; and finally, delirium.
To those acquainted with the so-called binominal or serial law, according to which no phenomenon occurs singly--each one being, on the contrary, the expression of a series of less well-defined but analogous facts--such frequent occurrence of epilepsy among the most distinguished of distinguished men can but indicate a greater prevalence of this disease among men of genius than was previously thought possible, and suggests the hypothesis of the
epileptoid nature of genius.