Proust, Neurology and Stendhal's Syndrome

Abstract

Marcel Proust is one of the most important French writers of the 20th century. His relationship with medicine and with neurology is possibly linked to the fact that his asthma was considered to be a psychosomatic disease classified as neurasthenia. Stendhal's syndrome is a rare psychiatric syndrome characterized by anxiety and affective and thought disturbances when a person is exposed to a work of art. Here, the authors describe neurological aspects of Proust's work, particularly the occurrence of Stendhal's syndrome and syncope when he as well as one of the characters of In Search of Lost Time see Vermeer's View of Delft during a visit to a museum.