The Body: A Guide for Occupants

by Bill Bryson

The inescapable fact is that the brain is an unnerving place as well as a marvellous one. There seems to be an almost limitless number of curious or bizarre syndromes and conditions associated with neural disorders. Anton-Babinski syndrome, for instance, is a condition in which people are blind but refuse to believe it. In Riddoch syndrome, victims cannot see objects unless they are in motion. Capgras syndrome is a condition in which sufferers become convinced that those they know well are imposters.45 In Klüver-Bucy syndrome the victim develops urges to eat and fornicate indiscriminately (to the understandable dismay of loved ones).46 Perhaps the most bizarre of all is Cotard delusion, in which the sufferer believes he is dead and cannot be convinced otherwise.