Scientists are once again raising the question of whether or not St. Joan of Arc was suffering from a particular form of epilepsy which caused her to have hallucinations and hear voices – although this latest study remains inconclusive.
The Daily Mail is reporting on research conducted by neurologists from the Universities of Foggia and Bologna in Italy who are once again examining whether or not the French heroine may have been suffering from epilepsy. Researchers combed through records of the saint’s testimonies while on trial and believe that several factors point to the possibility that her visions and “voices” were auditory epileptic hallucinations.
Doctors Guiseppe d’Orsi and Paola Tinuper think the saint’s mystical experiences were actually symptoms of a type of epilepsy that affects the part of the brain that handles what we hear, which they refer to as “an expression” of an epileptic syndrome named idiopathic partial epilepsy with auditory features, (IPEAF).”
As an example, they cite a statement in one of the documents where Joan of Arc says she “saw” saints such as St. Catherine and St. Margaret. Visual hallucinations are a symptom of IPEAF.
She also reported hearing the sound of bells ringing, which sometimes triggered the hearing of voices from heavenly figures.
In a letter published in the journal of Epilepsy and Behavior, d’Orsi and Tinuper explained that hearing specific sounds can trigger seizures.
Joan also claimed that she heard voices several times a week, then later declared: “There is never a day that I do not hear them [the voices].”
This frequency does not match the experts’ diagnosis of IPEAF which has a low seizure frequency.
However, the saint also claimed to hear the voices while she slept. In a statement dated March 12, 1431, St. Joan stated: “I was asleep: the Voice awoke me . . . It awoke me without touching me . . .”
Researchers say around 40 percent of people with this form of epilepsy have seizures while they sleep during which time some report hearing voices.
As intriguing as their hypothesis is, the researchers admit in their letter that “after six hundred years from Joan’s death, we reaffirm the impossibility to arrive at a final conclusion.”
Although they believe that many of the features of Joan’s visions have similarities to epilepsy, the only way to be sure would be to test the DNA found in a strand of her hair which supposedly exists along with a bundle of her letters. This DNA could be analyzed to determine if she had a gene that is linked to this form of epilepsy.
The only problem is that this strand of hair has yet to be found.
“The discovery of these letters and especially the hair could be important not only from a historical point of view but also from a scientific perspective to characterize Joan’s genetic code,” the researchers wrote.
But they added: “After ten years from our first hypothesis, we are still looking for this hair…” which means it could be a long time before they reach a definitive conclusion.
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