Vincent Van Gogh's Health - Symptoms and Characteristics

Symptoms and Characteristics

Various symptoms are described in Van Gogh's letters and other documents such as the asylum register at Saint-Rémy. The symptoms include: poor digestion and a bad stomach, hallucinations, nightmares, stupor, absent mindedness, impotence, insomnia, and anxiety.

Van Gogh suffered from some sort of seizures or crises, and in one of these attacks, December 23, 1888, he cut off a part of his ear. Following that attack, he was admitted to hospital in Arles, where his condition was diagnosed as "acute mania with generalised delirium". Dr. Félix Rey, a young intern at the hospital, also suggested there might be "a kind of epilepsy" involved that he characterised as mental epilepsy. These attacks became more frequent by 1890, the longest and severest lasting some 9 weeks from February to April 1890. Initial attacks of confusion and unconsciousness were followed by periods of stupor and incoherence during which he was generally unable to paint, draw, or even to write letters.

One of the most frequent complaints in Van Gogh's letters is the problems he endured with his stomach and digestion. Van Gogh suffered from hallucinations and nightmares at times. He often reported that he was suffering from fever. At various times he reported bouts of insomnia. He was unable to sleep for three weeks prior to his diagnosis of gonorrhea in The Hague (sleeplessness and fever probably due to infectious disease). On occasions he sunk into a kind of stupor. Van Gogh reported his impotence to Theo, his brother, in the summer after he arrived in Arles, and a month later when he wrote to Bernard it seemed to still be very much on his mind. Van Gogh mentioned suicide several times in his letters towards the end of his life, nevertheless Naifeh and Smith note that van Gogh was fundamentally opposed to suicide.