Abstract

MUCI-MENDOZA, Rafael. La neurología en un personaje de Dickens…Síndrome Pickwickiano, apneas hipopneas del sueño e hipertensión intracraneal. Gac Méd Caracas. [online]. 2009, vol.117, n.2, pp.154-162. ISSN 0367-4762.

In many cases, fictional literature has preceded science. Charles Dickens (1812-1870) filled his novels with anumber of noteworthy characters. As most great novelists, he possessed fine observation skills and an extraordinary capacity for description. In fact, one of his secondary characters gained a place in the world of medicine. From the “Pickwick Papers” (1836), Joe, the overweight and lazy servant, in spite of his brief appearance in chapter 54, has transcended to become part of the physician’s every day lingo. The amusing depiction that characterizes the overweight individual, survived in the medical world as the classic case of sleep apneas, the Pickwick syndrome or more precisely, the Pickwickian syndrome. After 120 years Burwell and his collaborators found a physiopathological explanation to the phenotype of Joe, ¨that fat and red-faced, chubby, plump and wheeze boy, in a state of somnolence”, so describing the presence of sleep apneas hypopneas and alveolar hypoventilation in obese individuals. The presence of intracranial hypertension is another of its infrequent components. We described a series of 4 of such cases.

Keywords : Charles Dickens; Pickwickian síndrome; Sleep apneas; Intracranial hypertension; Papilledema.