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"Men die of the diseases which they have studied most â[euro]¦ it's as if the morbid condition was an evil creature which, when it found itself closely hunted, flew at the throat of its pursuer." 1 This warning introduces a tale by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (ophthalmologist, historian, creator of Sherlock Holmes), wherein the fate of a neurologist, named Walker, is described. He developed locomotor ataxia, the early signs of which he noticed during a lecture on the said malady. Later, Doyle tells us that "there was of course the well-known instance of Liston and the aneurism, and a dozen others." 1
Reclining one evening in indifferent mood, I became burdened by the sobriety of this concept. I recalled an acquaintance, a vascular surgeon,...