The uncinated crisis of George Gershwin

• Autor(a) principal: Teive,Hélio A.G.
• Data de Publicação: 2002
• Outros Autores: Germiniani,Francisco M.B., Cardoso,Alexander B., Paola,Luciano de, Werneck,Lineu César
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Arquivos de neuro-psiquiatria (Online)
• Texto Completo: http://old.scielo.br/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S0004-282X2002000300033
• topic: Gershwin; uncinated crisis; glioblastoma

George Gershwin, renowned composer and pianist, well known for his popular works, died on the 11th July 1937 due to a brain tumor. His neurological symptoms first appeared on that same year, in February, with a simple olfactory partial seizure, characterized by an unpleasant smell of burnt rubber (uncinated seizure). He later had a quick clinical descend, with severe headache that occurred in bouts, dizziness, coordination compromise and olfactory seizures, eventually lapsing into a coma on the 9th July 1937. It was then that a gliomatosus cyst was diagnosed, which on microscopic examination proved to be a "glioblastoma multiforme". Despite the surgical intervention, Gershwin died soon after the procedure without recovering his consciousness. We make a brief review of Gershwin's neurologic disease, with emphasis on the initial symptoms, namely the uncinated seizures.