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Medical Students Profile Middle-Earth's Gollum
An anonymous reader writes "Several medical students and a lecturer in 'old age psychiatry' have written up their analysis and final diagnosis of Gollum in the British Medical Journal. Other readers note the possibility of metal toxicity from the One Ring in their Rapid Responses." Hopefully everyone has had a few days off to 'Research' this by watching RotK's extended cut.
my neurology professor gave a lecutre about neurologic disorders in star wars. the most interesting part was the observation that yoda may have suffered from William's Syndrome
Still no cure for cancer. Glad the LOTR fanboys with the power to make a difference are focusing on important issues. What next, a deep analysis of Lord Vader's life support system?
Does that act cover the medical information of the deceased to? (Lava stream usually are kind of lethal....)
And if it does is there a maximum time limit? (This is supposed to happened a long time ago)
Jeroen
Secure messaging: http://quickmsg.vreeken.net/
Now, to figure out just what alloy that it was that the embedded scrollwork was made from which would glow red at a temperature below the melting point of the amalgam (something with phosphorous in it, perhaps?)....
What is the difference between a small revolutionary change and a large evolutionary change?
and it would also violate the Privacy Act of 1974.
I think I think, therefore I think I am.
My wife is a psychology professor. One of her class exercises in Abnormal psychology is to have students "diagnose" a charcater from a movie. She says it helps students get interested in the topic to be able to write about a movie in which they are interested. Sure, she gets the standards: Norman Bates from "Psycho", Jack Nicholson's character in "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" and Glen Close from "Fatal Attraction". But she has recently gotten Jake Gyllenhall's character from Donnie Darko. I don't think she has gotten a paper on Gollum yet.
BTW, since the site has been blasted by Slashdotters, I can't get read it, but her guess is that Gollum has dissociative identity disorder. I'll be interested to see what the article says.
In five days time due to the wonders of the Freedom of Information Act there is no such thing as privacy in medical records in the U.K. any more - period. Want full disclosure of Tony Blairs recent operation, then it's all yours provided you cough up the money.
The site seems to be back up, but for those too lazy to read the article, the final diagnosis is schizoid personality disorder.
Dissociative Identity Disorder (in the article, referred to as multiple personality disorder) was ruled out because his two personalities are aware of each other and are present simultaneously and have conversations with each other. In DID, only one personality will manifest itself at a time, and the personalities are unaware of each other.
Schizophrenia was ruled out because he does not show evidence of delusions.
Ok, even by Slashdot standards this is going to be a seriously geeky post. Prepare yourself - you have been warned.
Gollum is at least 969 years old, and probably a whole lot older. Proof follows.
In the Silmarillion, there is a quote in "Of The Rings of Power and the Third age" that goes as follows:
Gollum found the ring while there was still a ruling king in Gondor, before the reign of the Stewards.
The reign of the Stewards began in TA 2050, after the death of King Eärnur at the hands of the Witch-King. So we know that Gollum had the ring before TA 2050.
The ring was destroyed in TA 3019. That makes Gollum at least 3019-2050=969, and that's only if he found the ring on the very day the Stewards claimed Gondor.
The Third Age begins with the defeat of Sauron by the Last Alliance. The earliest Gollum could have found the ring would be the day Isuldur lost it (TA 2), so he could be as old as 3019-2=3017.
So Gollum is somewhere between 969 and 3017 years old. Splitting the difference makes him probably around 2000 or so. In any event, he's a lot older than 587.
So how's that? Geeky enough for you? =)
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
The article was interesting and enteraining. I did notice a couple of unconsidered aspects. First, the ring renders the wearer transparent to visible light. Depending on upon its response in the ultraviolet spectrum (UV-B exposure is necessary), this could have induced some Vitamin D deficiency. This would have been exacerbated by Gollum's increasing photophobia, growing nocturnal habits and finally his relocation to a subterranean habitat. In addition to rickets, restlessness and irritability are possible symptons of inadequate Vitamin D.
------ The only greater hazard to your liberty than n politicians is n+1 politicians.
Well, coincidentally the BBC have a report about movies which have amnesiacs acting as they are supposed to.
Finding Nemo and Memento are amonst the gud'uns. Overboard and the Tom'n'Jerry movie are amongst the bad'uns.
The research was done by the National Society for Epilepsy, so its being used as a publicity piece I guess to highlight misconceptions about amnesiacs. Epileptics can suffer from amnesia as part of their condition. This does make it different to the subject story - which I guess is just a bit of speculative fun from people with too much time on their hands.
Professor Karmadillo Songs of Science
To me the movie made it clear that gollum's mental problems were the result of:
1) Magic power of the ring.
2) 550+ years of solitude.
3) Terrible guilt.