Honoré de Balzac's Story of Vanda de Mergi: The First Modern Case of Neurologic Functional Disorder?

Abstract

Modern case descriptions of functional neurologic disorders ("hysteria") date mainly from Jean-Martin Charcot and his followers, among whom Sigmund Freud emphasized sexual factors. In his last novel (<i>L'initié</i>), published in 1848, half a century before Charcot and Freud, Honoré de Balzac reported, with surprising modernity, the case of Vanda de Mergi, a young woman who had a complex disorder characterized by attacks of weakness and contractures, abnormal movements, and other manifestations including hound-like barking. Contrary to current medical reports, he described the patient's feelings and emphasized emotional and sexual issues, including in her spectacular recovery and cure. While it is unknown whether Balzac had any information from a real similar patient, his literary description of Vanda de Mergi's case makes him an astonishing precursor in the field of functional neurologic disorders.