Who Knew?

Chopin Suffered Epilepsy

Researchers say it explains his hallucinations.

In an effort to better understand that man behind the music, researchers have discovered that Fredric Chopin suffered from temporal lobe epilepsy. The wild-eyed composer often saw a "cohort of phantoms" and ghosts, but it was dismissed as possible bipolar disorder. Chopin was always ill--he was already dying from lung disease at 39 and took a drug called laudanum to help with another ailment but it wouldn't produce such hallucinations. Researchers looked through Chopin's correspondence with friends and family to investigate his behavior. In a letter to George Sand's daughter, Chopin writes that he had to leave the stage during a 1848 performance because he saw creatures coming from the piano.