The Lost Origin Read Online Free PDF Page B

the approach is completely different. There’s no doubt that there’s an organic component to Cotard delusion, but it’s also true that its symptoms coincide almost completely with those of an acute depression. Moreover, in your brother’s case, we have not been able to find any alteration in the left temporal lobe.”
    “Nevertheless, since he is my patient,” Now it was Hernández who didn’t move a muscle in his face, “I’ve outlined a course of intensive treatments using neuroleptics, chlorpromazine and thioridazine and I hope to be able to discharge him within fifteen days.”
    “There is, furthermore, another added problem,” the psychiatrist pointed out, “which is that Daniel presents, along with Cotard delusion, which is the most striking, evident signs of a pathology called agnosia.”
    I felt something inside me rebel. Until that moment I had managed to convince myself that everything that was happening was something temporary, that Daniel suffered from a “delusion” which had a cure and that once it was eliminated my brother would return to how he was before. However, it hit me painfully when they added more illnesses. I looked at Ona, and by the contraction of her face, I guessed that she was as distraught as I was. Little Dani, wrapped in the blue blanket and cuddled by his mother, had fallen at last into a deep sleep. And it was lucky he was so asleep because at that moment my phone, still tightly clutched in his hands, began to emit the musical notes denoting a call from Jabba. Fortunately, he didn’t even make a sound; he only let out a long sigh when Ona, with some difficulty, managed to extricate it from him.
    By asking after Daniel in the ER, Jabba and Proxi had managed to get to the lobby that opened into the Neurology department. After finishing the short chat I told Ona and she, slowly rising, moved towards the door and went out.
    “Should we wait for Daniel’s wife or should we continue?” Llor asked with some impatience. His tone made me remember something I had read once: in China, in ancient times, doctors only charged their fees if they saved the patient. Otherwise they didn’t charge or the family killed them.
    “Let’s just finish it now,” I replied, thinking that the ancient Chinese were really very wise. “And I will talk with my sister-in-law.”
    The little doctor began to speak. “Along with Cotard’s syndrome, your brother also suffers from a very pronounced case of agnosia.” He shoved the glasses all the way up his nose until they were touching his eyebrows and looked anxiously at the neurologist. “As Miquel…Dr. Llorwas explaining to you, agnosia, a much more common pathology, appears, generally, in patients who have suffered strokes or cerebral traumas in which they have lost part of their brain. As you can see, this is not the case with your brother nor of patients with Cotard’s, yet Daniel is nevertheless incapable of recognizing objects and people. To give you a clearer idea, your brother, who claims to be dead, lives at this moment in a world populated with strange things that move in absurd ways and make strange noises. If you showed him, for example, a cat, he wouldn't know what you were showing him, just as he also wouldn’t know that it was an animal of some sort, because he doesn’t know what an animal is.”
    I rubbed my head with my hands, despairing. I felt a terrible pressure in my temples.
    “He wouldn’t be able recognize you,” Dr. Hernández continued, “or his wife. To Daniel, all faces are flat ovals with a couple of black splotches where the eyes should be.”
    “What’s bad about agnosia,” added Llor, rubbing his palms together repeatedly, “is that, as it is produced by a stroke or a traumatic loss of brain mass, it has neither treatment nor cure. Having said that….”
    He left the phrase in the air, dripping hope.
    “The CT scans that we’ve taken of your brother show that Daniel’s brain is in perfect