• CLINICAL NEUROLOGY

The South Wales neurology department book club recently discussed ‘Metamorphosis’ by Robert Douglas-Fairhurst, a professor of English Literature at the University of Oxford.1 The book describes his journey after being diagnosed with primary progressive multiple sclerosis (PPMS). Unsurprisingly, the book is peppered with literary references. We discussed how a human tendency in a time of challenge is to take comfort in the familiar and revert to what we know. Therefore, Douglas-Fairhurst takes comfort in diving into literature describing people with MS or other neurological disorders. One such example is ‘The Journal of a Disappointed Man’ by Bruce Cummings, a naturalist in the early 1900s, who had MS. Some colleagues gave examples of how they immersed themselves in the scientific research in a particular area when they found themselves on the other side of the coin as a patient.

Early …