The Inward Empire

by Christian Donlan

  2 On the visual cortex: Stephen Macknick and Susana Martinez-Conde, Sleights of Mind: What the Neuroscience of Magic Reveals about Our Brains (London: Profile Books, 2011), pp. 11–13.

  3 On the eyes as an extension of the brain: Laura Cumming, A Face to the World: On Self-Portraits (London: HarperPress, 2010), p. 28.

  On the macula and the fovea: Macknick and Martinez-Conde, Sleights of Mind, pp. 29–30.

  On creative license being applied by the visual cortex: Ibid., p. 13.

  4 My understanding of Charles Bonnet syndrome is based on my discussions with neurologists.

  Myelin, the Mysterious—and Misunderstood—Substance at the Heart of MS

  1 On the discovery of the role the immune system plays in MS: Murray, Multiple Sclerosis, pp. 240–41.

  2 On Luigi Galvani’s work on the nerves: Finger, Minds Behind the Brain, p. 112.

  3 On new discoveries regarding myelin: https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg22530090-600-brain-boosting-its -not-just-grey-matter-that-matters/; my interview with Dr. William Richardson.

  7. Hyde

  1 Laniakea video: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/ laniakea-mapping-laniakea-the-milky-way-s-cosmic-home -video/.

  2 Allan Ropper’s book: Allan Ropper and B. D. Burrell, Reaching Down the Rabbit Hole: Extraordinary Journeys into the Human Brain (London: Atlantic Books, 2015).

  3 Joan Didion, The Year of Magical Thinking (London: Harper Perennial, 2006), p. 47.

  4 Hollowing as a Sacks term: Oliver Sacks, “The Last Hippie,” in An Anthropologist on Mars (London: Picador, 1995), p. 41.

  Robert Louis Stevenson biography: Claire Harman, Robert Louis Stevenson: A Biography (London: Harper Perennial, 2010), p. xvii.

  The Viking Gene, the Equator, and Vitamin D

  1 Leon’s chances of inheriting MS: mstrust.org.uk/a-z/risk -developing-ms.

  2 On the causes of MS: “Searching for a Cause of MS,” Murray, Multiple Sclerosis, pp. 229–318; Charcot’s observations: Ibid., p. 124; overworking: Murray, Multiple Sclerosis, p. 177;

  too much thinking: Ibid., p. 142; sexual habits: Ibid., p. 175. toxins: Murray, Multiple Sclerosis, p. 180.

  Charcot on gender imbalance: Ibid., p. 122.

  The role of geography: Ibid., p. 162.

  3 Orkney Islands: https://www.theguardian.com/society/ 2012/dec/10/orkney-islands-multiple-sclerosis-rate.

  8. Inside the Tent

  1 “Who is the third who walks always beside you”: T. S. Eliot, The Waste Land, in The Complete Poems and Plays of T. S. Eliot (London: Faber and Faber, 1969), p. 73.

  2 “place lag”: Mark Vanhoenacker, Skyfaring: A Journey with a Pilot (London: Vintage, 2015), p. 23.

  The Art of Diagnosis

  1 Poor-diagnosis anecdote: Murray, Multiple Sclerosis, p. 220.

  9. The Explorers’ Club

  1 Interview with Adam Platt: https://longform.org/posts/ longform-podcast-133-adam-platt.

  My thoughts on Las Meninas are inevitably influenced by Laura Cumming’s brilliant reading of the painting in her A Face to the World, pp. 118–33.

  2 “The Schreuderspitze”: Mark Helprin, Ellis Island and Other Stories (New York: Harcourt, 2005).

  3 Line from Saul Bellow: Saul Bellow, Humboldt’s Gift (London: Penguin Books, 1975), p. 256.

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