As another example of the limbic circuit interacting with the wider body, consider the case of Rita Hoefling, a forty-year-old white South African housewife. Surgeons removed Hoeflings adrenal glands in the early 1970s after diagnosing her with Cushing's syndrome, which occurs when the adrenals release too much cortisol. The surgery stopped that problem but stirred up other trouble The adrenals check the activity of the pituitary gland, and with nothing holding the pituitary gland, and with nothing holding the pituitary back now, it began to churn out hormones that increase the production of melanin inside skin cells. Melanin changes the color of skin, and Hoefling began to turn bronze, then light brown, as a result. This well-known side effect of removing the adrenals (Nelson's syndrome) wouldn't have caused much of a stir - except in apartheid South Africa. Hoefling started getting thrown off whites-only buses. Her husband and son abandoned her. She was even barred from her father's funeral. After her ostracism, the colored community magnanimously embraced Hoefling, and she later spoke out against the evils of Apartheid.That's just part of one of the endnotes from Sam Kean's The Tale of the Dueling Neurosurgeons: The History of the Human Brain as Revealed by True Stories of Trauma, Madness, and Recovery. It's a treasure trove of fascinating stories about human cognition and behavior. I mean, there's some depressing stuff like how the neuroscientist who first diagnosed kuru in Papua New Guinea turned out to be a massive pedophile, but on balance it's more interesting than anything else.
As for Mrs. Hoefling, what can one say? You never know what you'll wind up learning lessons from.
2 comments:
That is definitely a strange story and a scary one considering what happened to her as a result of the surgery. While I can almost understand her being treated differently in aparteid S. Africa the shocking thing was to learn she'd been shunned by her family.
The book sounds fascinating. I wonder if you ever read anything by the neurologist, Oliver Sacks? He wrote much about our perceptions - The Man Who Mistook His Wife For a Hat and Awakenings are two I enjoyed very much. He suffered from an inability to recognise faces.
That's the sad and scary thing. Whatever you characterize apartheid as, the people of South Africa internalized it. Sometimes to the extent it could override family bonds. The upside is that there was at least a community willing to take her in.
A while ago I read Island of the Colour-Blind, a fascinating case study by Sacks. Yeah, gay and Jewish with prosapagnosia (the face thing.) Must have been an interesting way to grow up in those days. As it happens Penn Jillette is also unable to recognize faces.
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