The surviving soldier Spanish Civil Warknown as “Patient M”turned out to be a case of scientific investigation when it was verified that I saw the world “upside down”. The ex-combatant survived a shrapnel that lodged in his head in 1938, after a bombing by the Francoist army.
In the city of Valencia and during the Spanish Civil War one soldier received was wounded in the back of the head. His body was left abandoned for long hours until he was rescued unconscious on the battlefield. When they found him alive, they transported him to the Provincial Hospital of Valencia, where he stayed for about three months. The man survived with the necessary care for a wounded in combat, but without receiving surgeries.
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In August 1938, he entered the Godella Military Health Hospital in Valencia, controlled by the military, where the neurologist Justo Gonzalo Rodríguez Leal worked as a war doctor.
Published in two volumes between 1945 and 1950, “Patient M” ended up being a case study in the scientific world. Isabel Gonzalo, who met Patient M during her trips to her family’s home to see her father, originally treated him. As published by the Dailymail, the doctor who treated him was surprised when the patient told him that he saw men working face down on a scaffold.
He could also read printed letters and numbers normally and backwards, without his brain being able to see any difference between the two. Full details of the fascinating case have now been shared in a medical journal.
Tests at the time showed that the missile had partially destroyed the outer layers of the back of Patient M’s brain on the left side.
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Symptoms of seeing the world upside down
In addition to the other symptoms, Dr. Gonzalo also discovered that Patient M was seeing objects in triplicate (triple vision of a single object) and was experiencing color blindness. His sensory function was impaired, with his hearing and sense of touch reversed.
As published by the DW portal in Germany, the neuropsychologist Alberto García Molina and Dr. Gonzalo’s daughter, Isabel, said: “Surprisingly, the patient handles his daily life without difficulties.”
Thanks to this case, Isabel, who is a specialist in physics and emeritus professor at the Complutense University of Madrid, discovered hundreds of documents and photos related to Patient M in her father’s files.
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Finding
Based on clinical observations of the soldier throughout the 1940s, Dr. Gonzalo developed new hypotheses about brain dynamics, as well as effects of brain damage that vary by size and location of injury.
Ultimately, brain damage does not destroy a specific function of the brain, it affects the balance of functions: a new theory for its time, now widely established.
Dr. Gonzalo identified three syndromes: central (where multiple senses are disrupted), paracentral (where the effects of multiple sense disruption are not evenly distributed), and marginal (where only specific senses are affected).
“Patient M helps lay the foundation for Justo Gonzalo’s unique theory of brain dynamics,” the scientists wrote. Patient M continued to see Dr. Gonzalo until the doctor’s death in 1986.
NT CP
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