The Effects of Diseases, Drugs, and Chemicals on the Creativity and Productivity of Famous Sculptors, Classic Painters, Classic Music Composers, and Authors - Creativity and Mental Illness

Written by Paul L. Wolf MD

Page 6 of 6

It was obvious that Berlioz was addicted to opium, which is a yellow to dark brown, addicting narcotic drug prepared from the juice of the unripe seed capsules of the opium poppy. It contains alkaloids such as morphine, codeine, and papaverine, and is used as an intoxicant. Medically, it is used to relieve pain and produce sleep. It is a tranquilizer and has a stupefying effect. Apart from alcohol, opium was the drug most commonly relied on in the 19th century, especially by poets for stimulating creative ability and for relief from stress.

Thomas De Quincey (1785-1859) was an English essayist. He wrote a rare kind of imaginative prose that was highly ornate, full of subtle rhythms, and sensitive to the sound and arrangement of words. His prose was as much musical as literary in its style and structure, and anticipated such modern narrative techniques as stream-of-consciousness.

De Quincey authored his most famous essay, Confessions of an English Opium-Eater, in 1821. He gave us an eloquent essay both of the delights and the agonies of opium abuse. He believed that the habit of eating opium was of common practice in his day and was not considered a vice. Originally, De Quincey believed that the use of opium was not to seek pleasure, but its use was intended for his extreme facial pain, which was caused by trigeminal neuralgia.³⁰ The essay's biographical parts are important mainly as background for dreams De Quincey describes later. In these dreams, he examined (with the help of opium) the intimate workings of the memory and subconscious. It is easily understandable that De Quincey "began to use opium as an article of daily diet." He was addicted to the drug from the age of 19 until he died. The pain was not the only reason for his addiction; he also discovered the effect of opium on his spiritual life. By accident, he met a college acquaintance who recommended opium for his pain.

On a rainy Sunday in London, De Quincey visited a druggist's shop, where he asked for the tincture of opium. He arrived at his lodgings and lost not a moment in taking the quantity prescribed. In an hour, he stated:

Oh heavens! What a revulsion, what a resurrection, from its lowest depths of the inner spirit! What an apocalypse of the world within me! That my pains had vanished was now a trifle in my eyes; this negative effect was swallowed up in the immensity of these positive effects, which had opened before me, in the abyss of divine enjoyment thus suddenly revealed. Here was a panacea for all human woes; here was the secret of happiness, about which philosophers had disputed for so many ages, at once discovered; happiness might now be bought for a penny and carried in the waistcoat-pocket; portable ecstasies might be corked up in a pint-bottle.

Other famous writers and poets have used opium. Coleridge saw the palace of Kublai Khan in a trance and sang its praise "in a state of Reverie, caused by 2 grains of opium." Coleridge wrote: "For he on honeydew hath fed/ And drunk the milk of Paradise." John Keats also tried the drug and stated in his Ode to Melancholy: "My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains/My sense, as although of hemlock I had drunk/Or emptied some dull opiate to the drains."

continue story below

If our modern clinical chemistry, toxicology, immunology, hematology-coagulation, infectious diseases, and anatomic pathology laboratories had existed during the 16th through the 19th centuries, during the lifetimes of Cellini, Michelangelo, Arosenius, Munch, Van Gogh, Berlioz, De Quincey, and other famous artists, the clinical laboratories, especially those certified by the College of American Pathologists, might have unraveled the mysteries of their afflictions.

Although the famous artists discussed in this article were ill, many continued to be productive. Diseases, drugs, and chemicals may have influenced their creativity and productivity. After the diagnoses were established, aided by anatomic and clinical pathology findings, these famous artists may have benefited from resultant treatment with modern medical techniques. Modern pathologists' clinical laboratories are important in solving today's medical disease mysteries and would have been important solving yesteryears' medical mysteries.

next: Coping With Psychosis: Some Thoughts From a Psychologist With Paranoid Schizophrenia
~ back to articles on the schizophrenia library
~ all articles on schizophrenia
~ all articles on schizoaffective disorder
~ thought disorders homepage

Notes

Acknowledgments

I gratefully acknowledge Leikula Rebecca Carr for her excellent stenographic and editorial assistance in the preparation of this manuscript; William Buchanan, Terrence Washington, and Mary Fran Loftus, Omni-Photo Communications, Inc, for their professional photographic and technical expertise; and Patricia A. Thistlethwaite, MD, PhD for her critical review of the manuscript.

1. Weatherall D. The inhumanity of medicine. BMJ 1994;309:1671-1672. [PubMed Citation]

2. Osler W. The Old Humanities and the New Science. Boston, Mass: Houghton Mifflin; 1920:26-28.

3. Calman KC, Downie RS, Duthie M, Sweeney B. Literature and medicine: a short course for medical students. Med Educ 1988;22:265-269. [PubMed Citation]

4. Geelhoed G. The record of an early mercurial cure in the history of syphilis with a case history of a 29-year-old white male Renaissance genius. Aust N Z J Surg 1978;48:569-594.

5. Clarkson TW, Magos L, Myers GJ. The toxicology of mercury: current exposures and clinical manifestations. N Engl J Med 2003;349:1731-1737. [PubMed Citation]

6. Dennie CC. A History of Syphilis. Springfield, Ill: Charles C Thomas; 1982: 16-17.

7. Espinel CH. Michelangelo's gout in a fresco by Raphael. Lancet 1999;354:2149-2152. [PubMed Citation]

8. Meshberger FL. An interpretation of Michelangelo's Creation of Adam based on neuroanatomy. JAMA 1990;264:1837-1841. [PubMed Citation]

9. Jamison KR. Manic-depressive illness and creativity. Sci Am 1995;272:62-67. [PubMed Citation]

10. Withering W. An account of the foxglove and some of its medical uses: with practical remarks on dropsy and other diseases (London, 1785: iii). In: Willius FA, Keys TE, eds. Classics of Cardiology 1. New York, NY: Henry Schuman; 1941:231-252.

11. Jackson H, Zerfas LG. A case of yellow vision associated with digitalis poisoning. Boston Med Surg J 1925;192:890-893.

12. Sprague HB, White PD, Kellogg JF. Disturbances of vision due to digitalis. JAMA 1925;85:715-720.

13. White PD. An important toxic effect of digitalis overdosage on the vision. N Engl J Med 1965;272:904-905. [PubMed Citation]

14. Lee TC. Van Gogh's vision digitalis intoxication. JAMA 1981;245:727-729. [PubMed Citation]

15. Barton BH, Castle T. The British Flora Medica. London, England: Chatto and Windus; 1877:181-184.

16. Piltz JR, Wertenbaker C, Lance SE, Slamovits T, Leeper HF. Digoxin toxicity: recognizing the varied visual presentations. J Clin Neuroophthalmol 1993;13:275-280. [PubMed Citation]

17. Langdon HM, Mulberger RD. Visual disturbance after ingestion of digitalis. Am J Ophthalmol 1945;28:639-640.

18. Carroll FD. Visual symptoms caused by digitalis. Am J Ophthalmol 1945;28:373-376.

19. Weiss S. The effects of digitalis bodies on the nervous system. Med Clin North Am 1932;15:963-982.

20. Weleber RG, Shults WT. Digoxin retinal toxicity: clinical and electrophysiologic evaluation of a cone dysfunction syndrome. Arch Ophthalmol 1981;99:1568-1572. [PubMed Citation]

21. Binnion PF, Frazer G. [3H]Digoxin in the optic tract in digoxin intoxication. J Cardiovasc Pharmacol 1980;2:699-706. [PubMed Citation]

22. Bonting SL, Caravaggio LL, Canady MR. Studies on sodium-potassium-activated adenosine triphosphatase: occurrence in retinal rods and relation to rhodopsin. Exp Eye Res 1964;3:47-56.

23. Lissner W, Greenlee JE, Cameron JD, Goren SB. Localization of tritiated digoxin in the rat eye. Am J Ophthalmol 1971;72:608-614. [PubMed Citation]

24. Albert-Puleo M. Van Gogh's vision thujone intoxication [letter]. JAMA 1981;246:42 [PubMed Citation]

25. Albert-Puleo M. Mythobotany, pharmacology and chemistry of thujone-containing plants and derivatives. Econ Botany 1978;32:65-74.

26. KM,, Sirisoma NS, Ikeda T, Narahashi T, Casida JE. Î±-thujone (the active component of absinthe): y-aminobutyric acid type A receptor modulation and metabolic detoxification. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 2000;97:3826-3831. [PubMed Citation]

27. Wolf PL. If clinical chemistry had existed then. Clin Chem 1994;40:328-335. [PubMed Citation]

28. Weisbord SD, Soule JB, Kimmel PL. Poison on line: acute renal failure caused by oil of wormwood purchased through the Internet. N Engl J Med 1997;337:825-827. [PubMed Citation]

29. Goulding PG. Classical Music. New York, NY: Fawcett Books; 1992.

30. Sandblom P. Creativity and Disease. 9th ed. New York, NY: Marion Boyars; 1996.

Last updated: 12/05