Fainting in classical art.
Publisher Summary Fainting (syncope) is a temporary loss of consciousness and posture. Fainting is far commoner than epilepsy, but in art, epileptic seizures are more commonly depicted than fainting. Syncope typically happens in particular situations such as hot crowded environments, including restaurants or aeroplanes, in the doctor's surgery, or in the bathroom at night; specific triggers include prolonged standing, emotional trauma, and pain. Emotional turmoil, particularly grief, usually causes the syncope shown in art; the common causes of syncope in real life, such as prolonged standing and being in hot environments, are rarely shown. Moreover, women in art are much more likely to faint than men, and typically are young, beautiful, and reacting to grief; in real life, the sex ratio only slightly favors women. When men are shown to faint in art, it is often through serious, even life-threatening causes such as severe blood loss or terminal illness. Simple faints in art, particularly in women, often has overtones of a psychogenic component (‘‘swooning’’). Thus, the fainters are often painted with pink skin, eyes closed, and held upright, seemingly without coming to harm.
Neurology in the National Gallery
Illness, though ever present, is seldom the deliberate subject of art. Obvious malformations may appear as examples of the grotesque2'3 but more subtle depiction of disease is sometimes detected in classical works4'5. Neurology encompasses a broad range of medical disorders and so neurological themes in art are often recognized, either directly appearing in the pictures themselves69 or indirectly resulting from neurological disease in the artist10-13. The National Gallery, in Trafalgar Square, London, houses representative works from all major European artists in its magnificent collection of over two thousand paintings. Here are described several of the Gallery's paintings with neurological themes.
The peculiar thermo-structural behavior of the anionic lipid DMPG.
Aqueous dispersions of the anionic phospholipid dimyristoyl phosphatidylglycerol (DMPG), around 100 mM ionic strength, are known to exhibit a thermal behavior similar to that of the largely studied lipid dimyristoyl phosphatidylcholine (DMPC), which undergoes a gel to liquid crystalline phase transition at 23 degrees C, well characterized by differential scanning calorimetry (DSC), and other methods. However, at low ionic strength, DMPG has been shown to present a large gel-fluid transition region, ranging from 18 to 35 degrees C. This intermediate phase is optically transparent and characterized by a continuous change in membrane packing. Structural properties of the DMPG gel-fluid transition region will be discussed, based on results obtained by several techniques: electron spin resonance (ESR) of spin labels at the membrane surface and intercalated at different depths in the bilayer; light scattering; DSC; small angle X-ray scattering (SAXS); and fluorescence spectroscopy of probes in the bilayer.