History
The Capgras delusion is named after Joseph Capgras (1873–1950), a French psychiatrist who first described the disorder in 1923 in his paper co-authored by Reboul-Lachaux, on the case of a French woman who complained that corresponding "doubles" had taken the places of her husband and other people she knew.
Their term l'illusion des « sosies »...—which can be literally translated as "the illusion of 'doubles'..."—finds some modern professional use in French (e.g. "L’illusion des sosies de Capgras est...", which however its authors render in English as "Capgras’ syndrome is ..."). But the distinction between illusion and delusion is important in modern technical English, and the Capgras syndrome is clearly a delusional condition.
Read more about this topic: Capgras Delusion
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“I think that Richard Nixon will go down in history as a true folk hero, who struck a vital blow to the whole diseased concept of the revered image and gave the American virtue of irreverence and skepticism back to the people.”
—William Burroughs (b. 1914)
“The history of progress is written in the blood of men and women who have dared to espouse an unpopular cause, as, for instance, the black man’s right to his body, or woman’s right to her soul.”
—Emma Goldman (1869–1940)
“Whenever we read the obscene stories, the voluptuous debaucheries, the cruel and torturous executions, the unrelenting vindictiveness, with which more than half the Bible is filled, it would be more consistent that we called it the word of a demon than the Word of God. It is a history of wickedness that has served to corrupt and brutalize mankind.”
—Thomas Paine (1737–1809)