Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-t7fkt Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-23T12:07:39.221Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

A delusion of immortality – the dilemma of the Struldbruggs

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 June 2014

Rachael Cullivan
Affiliation:
Department of Psychiatry, St. Vincent's Hospital, Elm Park, Dublin 4, Ireland
Brian A Lawlor
Affiliation:
Department of Psychiatry, St. Vincent's Hospital, Elm Park, Dublin 4, Ireland

Abstract

We describe a lady with a history of recurrent psychotic depression, together with a persistent delusion of immortality, which appears to be independent of the depressive illness. It is of interest that this woman is a patient of the hospital founded by Dean Jonathan Swift, who described a people stricken with a similar dilemma of unhappy immortality over 200 years ago.

Type
Case Reports
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2002

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1.Swift, J. Gulliver's Travels London, Penguin Reprinted 1985.Google Scholar
2.Joseph, AB. Cotard's syndrome in a patient with coexistent Capgras' syndrome, syndrome of subjective doubles, and palinopsia. J Clin Psychiatry 1986; 47(12): 605606.Google Scholar
3.Berrios, GE, Luque, R. Cotard's syndrome: analysis of 100 cases. Acta Psychiatr Scand 1995; 91: 185188CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
4.World Health Organisation The ICD-10 Classification of Mental and Behavioural Disorders, Geneva: WHO, 1992Google Scholar
5.Glendinning, V. Jonathan Swift. 2nd Edition. London, Pimlico 1999.Google Scholar