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I found a mistake. The hypothesis of lead poisoning was first proposed by Dr. Gonzalez Luque (and not by Dr Arnold) in a doctoral thesis at University of Salamanca in 1991: "The materials of painting in the cause of psychopathology of Vincent van Gogh ". Dr. Gonzalez Luque and Dr. Montejo published subsequently others papers and monographs that had international recognition: “Implication of lead poisoning in psychopathology of Vincent van Gogh” Actas Luso Esp Neurol Psiquiatr Cienc Afines. 1997;25(5):309-26; “Vincent van Gogh and The Toxic Colors of Saturn” [The Vincent van Gogh Gallery, 2004], and other publications. Dr. Arnold in his work published in 1993 - “Vincent van Gogh: Chemicals, Crises, and Creativity" N Engl J Med 329:1133O - argues that the absinthe precipitated an acute porphyria in the Dutch painter. The diagnosis was proposed by Loretta Loftus, an associate of Arnold's. in 1991: Loftus LS, Arnold WN. "Vincent van Gogh's illness: acute intermittent porphyria?" BMJ 1991;303: 1589-91. More information in The Vincent van Gogh Gallery [www.vggallery.com]. On the other hand, the crises of confusion or disturbance of consciousness with delirium and psychotic symptoms occurred in Arles, in the middle of artistic activity, and never in the North, as the Dutch painter says in a letter dated September 1889 (Letter 607) . Vincent premorbid personality, impulsive and emotionally unstable, not be confused with a disease state or with the crises suffered by the artist later. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.125.14.68 (talk) 13:37, 23 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Recent changes

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Please be careful with your removals and additions, thank you...Modernist (talk) 17:30, 23 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Documentary research can not be inferred that Theo died of syphilis. On the death certificate of the Utrecht Clinic indicates that he died from a "chronic kidney disease progressed rapidly," [Death certificate signed in the Clinic of Dr. Willem Arntsz in Utrecht on January 25, 1891]. Unfortunately, the death certificate is missing, but appears in the biography of Van Gogh by Pierre Leprohon. [Leprohon P. "Van Gogh". Biografía. Barcelona: Salvat, 1991: p. 247]. In addition, Doiteau in collaboration with Dr. Gachet, reviewed the medical records indicating that Theo chronic kidney disease was due to "kidney stones" which caused him renal failure with severe mental disorders [Doiteau V. Paris. Esculap 1940:30,76]. Moreover, Vincent Willem van Gogh (Theo's son) in an interview with journalist Ken Wlikie, denied that his father had suffered from syphilis, indicating with a gesture between the legs that Theo could not urinate [Wilkie K. "Van Gogh: viaje a la luz enloquecida". Madrid. Espasa Calpe, 1990: págs. 205, 211]. Ken Wilkie, without medical training, frivolous in his book the diagnosis of Theo and Vincent, suggesting that both had syphilis and consequently the same disease. This diagnosis is rejected as a mental disorder of the artist, after laborious studies by renowned neuro-psychiatrists (Jaspers K. 1922, Hendenberg S. 1937, Kraus G. 1941, Gastaut H. 1956 or Vallejo-Nágera JA. 1981, among others). Moreover, assuming that both brothers had contracted syphilis in the brothels of Paris (March 1886-February 1888), it is impossible that they developed so quickly neurosyphilis mental disorder, which occurs late 10 to 20 years after infection (B. Lechevalier 1974). And Theo died only six months after Vincent's suicide occurred in July 1890. I wrote this note to clarify the condition of Theo, because it is annoying to say that he died of "syphilis" without evidence, especially for their descendants. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Investigadorvg (talk • contribs) 23:36, 24 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Oh don't be silly IP! Of course Theo and Vincent might well have been using prostitutes long before 1886, quite possibly from their early teens 1872 onwards, ample time to develop neurosyphilis by 1890. The question really is not whether they suffered from neurosyphilis (Theo unquestionably did) but rather whether it was heritary or not. But I take your point about citing syphilis rather than neuropsyphilis. Nevertheless Theo was treated for a chancre on his glans penis during his final months, and I'm afraid that does indicate syphilis acquired through sexual intercourse. RobvanderWaal (talk) 16:12, 22 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

"Towards the end of Van Gogh's life he had thoughts of suicide" (Symptoms and characteristics)

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The edit "Towards the end of Van Gogh's life he had thoughts of suicide" is really Original Research supported by three primary sources and ought to be struck, but I am unwilling to do that and provoke a certain edit war.

It doesn't get better when you look at the sources cited.

Letter 588 is about the cost of finding an asylum and pressuring Theo to support Vincent's choice at Saint-Remy. He suggests otherwise joining the Foreign Legion (now that is a development in a parallel universe I would have liked to see :)), otherwise he will inevitably be driven to suicide:"And that is, I don't say a great, but still a small injustice. Even so, I should feel resigned if one took me in. If I were without your friendship, they would drive me remorselessly to suicide, and coward that I am, I should end by committing it. At this point, I hope, we are permitted to protest against society and to defend ourselves."

Letter 602a is from Dr. Peyron at Saint-Remy, from his report releasing him: "His thoughts of suicide have disappeared, only disturbing dreams remain, but they tend to disappear too, and their intensity is less great."

Letter 605 contains to references to a man wanting to drown himself but thinks better of it because the water is cold: "Above all, in my case, where a more violent crisis may destroy my ability to paint forever. In the crises I feel cowardly in the face of anguish and suffering – more cowardly than is justified, and it’s perhaps this very moral cowardice which, while before I had no desire whatsoever to get better, now makes me eat enough for two, work hard, take care of myself in my relations with the other patients for fear of relapsing – anyway I’m trying to get better now like someone who, having wanted to commit suicide, finding the water too cold, tries to catch hold of the bank again."

Neither 588 nor 605 suggest suicidal ideation of any significance, while 602a is a primary source I don't think we should rely on (Peyron belived Vincent tried to poison himself swallowing paints and turpentine, but whether that was really the intention is contentious).

I'm unhappy actually to leave this edit. But the problem is that reliable RS I have to hand don't in fact treat suicidal ideation (essentially because Vincent didn't indulge it). I have read sources which testify to his resolution in the face of his condition, the conviction that it was bettering him, and his abhorrence of suicide, but didn't take notes and can't recall themn ow. If I do see RS secondary treating suicidal ideation I will edit accordingly.

Meanwhile what I have done is replace "thoughts of suicide", which can only be read as suicidal ideation, with "several times mentioned suicide in his letters" and replaced the primary source with a webcite http://vangoghbiography.com/getnotes.php?chapter=Chapter43&footnote from http://vangoghbiography.com (Naifeh and Smith) which is certainly RS secondary and does cite various mentions of suicide.

I hope this will be a satifactory compromise to shrinks and cooks alike.

Thank you. RobvanderWaal (talk) 04:48, 23 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Ate yellow paint?

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"The Man from Del Monte (Ariel Nyp) ... he say No!" Martinevans123 (talk) 22:49, 15 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Requested move 25 July 2018

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The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: consensus to move the pages to the proposed titles at this time, per the discussion below. Dekimasuよ! 02:23, 1 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

– The contents of Category:Health by individual are inconsistent between themselves, and inconsistent with the general titling scheme of articles in other categories by individual. Within this category, we also have Health of Frédéric Chopin, Health of Charles Darwin, Health of Abraham Lincoln, Health and appearance of Michael Jackson, and Health of Donald Trump. In the comparable categories of Category:Deaths by person, Category:Deaths by person in the United States, Category:Sexuality of individuals, and Category:Funerals by person all fairly universally are titled "Death of...", "Murder of...", "Sexuality of...", "Funeral of...", and the like. Throughout the encyclopedia, we tend to avoid using possessive phrases outside of instances where they are contained in the actual name of a thing (like Bob's Burgers, Widow's peak, or Darwin's tubercle). bd2412 T 02:19, 25 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Bad form in that possessives convey ownership, whereas the alternate reads a bit more formal and encyclopedic in tone. freshacconci (✉) 14:57, 25 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
The "of" performs precisely the same grammatical function as the apostrophe-s, so why should one be considered more "encyclopedic" than the other? Beyond My Ken (talk) 23:00, 25 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
The distinction can clearly be seen if we consider a hypothetical. Samuel Johnson is arguably most famous for having written one of the earlier dictionaries of the English language. There is an entry in the dictionary on "death" (although there does not appear to be an entry on "health"). If we had an article titled "Samuel Johnson's death" it could refer to his dictionary entry on the word, death. "Death of Samuel Johnson" is more clearly not about something merely written by Samuel Johnson. On a larger scale, it would take perhaps tens of thousands of page moves to bring titles in the encyclopedia into conformity with a "Bar's Foo" consistency over the current "Foo of Bar" practice for general topics. By contrast, the vast majority of titles constructed with a "Bar's Foo" structure are formal names of animals (Darwin's rhea, Grévy's zebra, Smith's red rock hare), which are clearly named that way because they have to be. bd2412 T 00:20, 26 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry, but I find that to be a very strained and artificial example. Any such ambiguity can be dealt with on a case by case basis, if and when it ever comes up -- which I sincerely doubt to be very likely. What I'm seeing here is basically an ill-defined prejudice again the 'aprostrope-s" form. This is Wikipedia, can we please have some citations from reliable style guides to show that the "of" form is to be preferred over the apostrophe-s form? Beyond My Ken (talk) 00:42, 26 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Does that even matter, if there are tens of thousands of articles of this type using "Foo of Bar" titles, and only a handful using "Bar's Foo" titles? If we establish a formal consistency, we should observe it in the absence of a specific reason not to do so. With respect to sources, I would note that at least some people think that apostrophes cause confusion. If we had an article on the health of Richard Dawkins, would it be "Dawkins' health" or "Dawkins's health"? Or would editors with different views of the "'s" fight endlessly over it? bd2412 T 01:15, 26 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
The concern over "consistency" on Wikipedia is most often about consistency within articles, not necessarily consistency between articles, and there's a reason for that: with so many articles, and so many editors, policing that kind of consistency would be onerous. Our articles are writen in numerous versions of English, using different date forms, references by a variety of citation styles, and as long as there is consistency within each article, that's not a problem. We have COMMONNAME to help us with article titles (and I'd submit that, for instance, "Adolf Hitler's health" is a much more common form than "[The] Health of Adolf Hitler"), but as long as there are redirects between the different forms, what does it really matter, and why should we spend the time and energy trying to make everything the same all over the place? It's much more important that the article are factual, well-written, understandable by our readers, and well-supported by citations from reliable sources than it is that their titles all use the same exact format. Like ENGVAR, DATEVAR and CITEVAR, such things should be set by the article creator or the primary author, not by out-of-the-way discussions such as this.
If this is to continue, it needs to be listed on CENTRALIZED at the very least, if not moved to a more appropriate location. Further, it should not be an RM, it should be an RfC, as it's asking for a general change that potentially affects many more articles. Beyond My Ken (talk) 01:37, 26 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Added to centralized. I still suggest that this RM be converted into an RfC. Beyond My Ken (talk) 01:47, 26 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Were you unaware of Wikipedia:Article titles? It specifically states that there are five key characteristics for determining article titles, of which the fifth is "Consistency – The title is consistent with the pattern of similar articles' titles". Furthermore, this is a policy, not a guideline. If you feel that an RfC is in order, it would be to change that existing policy, with which this proposal is consistent. bd2412 T 01:55, 26 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Actually, I was unaware of it, thanks for pointing it out. OK, given that policy, the thing would be for those who wish to move these titles to show that the "of" form is used more often that the apostrophe-s form. Right now, the six articles above -- the articles requested to be moved -- are all examples of the apostrophe-s form. Can it be shown that the "of" form is more extensively used? Beyond My Ken (talk) 03:32, 26 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
OK, looking at the first 500 results of this search, and keeping COMMONNAME in mind, the only article that could easily have been in another form is (ironically) Death of Adolf Hitler, which could easily have been Adolf Hitler's death. All the rest are not really examples of the consistency question, because either they can't be converted to apostrophe-s, or such a conversion would go against COMMONNAME or be extrenely awkward. (The other interesting one is Newton's laws of motion -- would those supporting this RM want that to be changed to Laws of motion of Newton?). I'm having more trouble generating a list of articles that use the apostrophe-s form. Beyond My Ken (talk) 03:47, 26 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I noted in the proposal Category:Deaths by person and Category:Deaths by person in the United States, which appear to be the most heavily populated categories of this type, and which nearly universally use "Foo of Bar" constructions. A fair number of those are "Murder of" articles, which could be confusing if they were at "'s" titles, because that could suggest a murder committed by the subject, rather than one for which the subject is the victim. As for Newton's laws, that would be the formal name of the thing, like Darwin's rhea (hence, not "Isaac Newton's laws..."). bd2412 T 03:51, 26 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
If "Newton's laws of motion" is a "formal title" and not a description, then the article title should be "Newton's Laws of Motion". Beyond My Ken (talk) 03:55, 26 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
A little off-topic, but that's not the practice in mathematics - see, e.g., Bernoulli's principle, Chebyshev's inequality, Euler's formula, etc. bd2412 T 21:36, 26 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • I don't disagree that sometimes "Foo of Bar" seems natural, while at other times "Foo's bar" does. Looking at the above, "Paralytic illness of Franklin D. Roosevelt" is just god-awful. And there's the fact that all the "of" versions drop the "The" which would make a proper title, i.e. "The Health of Adolf Hitler", but we don;t do that, so you end up with "Health of Adolf Hitler", which sounds unfinished, while "Adolf Hitler's health" is perfectly fine. Beyond My Ken (talk) 10:04, 26 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Well played, sir. Beyond My Ken (talk) 22:01, 26 July 2018 (UTC) (P.S. Couldn't decide which was more appropriate, "Bar's foo" or "Foo's bar", so I tossed a coin. Unfortunately the coin rolled under the sofa, so I fell back on my better judgment, which is usually a mistake.)[reply]
  • Comment Whilst I follow the logic of renaming articles as per the OP (on the grounds of greater clarity, encyclopaedia tone and precision), I am not convinced that this would necessarily help users find content, unless they specifically knew to type 'death of ...', 'health of ...'. I certainly never do that when I search google - I put the subject keyword first. We must always remember that new users outnumber those of us who are familiar with Wikipedia's layout (I mean, the layout of Wikipedia). It seems likely that most users here would also simply first type in the subject name and only then discover to their delight (via the drop downs in the search box) that there are multiple related articles and, oh look, there's one on Vincent van Gogh's health that I didn't know we had, but I'd now like to read. I'd say that as long as every new or existing article had a redirect created for it from 'Foo's death' to 'Death of Foo', then the latter format is preferable and both bases are covered. Nick Moyes (talk) 14:24, 26 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
    • That function is well served by redirects - for example, if you type Hillary Clinton's health or Ronald Reagan's health (which I have just added) into the search bar, each will point you to a redirect to the relevant article section, even though there are no Wikipedia articles specifically on those subjects (it may take a while for the system to update the new redirect for Reagan). If these pages are moved as proposed, the resulting redirects will enable readers searching for these titles to find them no differently than before. Conversely, readers who type "Health of" into the subject bar will get a more complete picture of articles about the health of subjects generally. bd2412 T 14:38, 26 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
      • Well, there's the rub. One order will suit readers who wish to search by general topic and the other order will suit those readers who wish to search by person's name. Who's to say which is more frequent or more useful? Martinevans123 (talk) 14:44, 26 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
        • Redirects are as searchable as article titles. Therefore, we can have both. We can keep the articles under a consistent title framework, which enables modules and templates to call the articles without difficult workarounds, and use redirects to make them searchable by the person's name. In fact, we are already doing this in several cases. bd2412 T 14:54, 26 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
          • So, sounds like you're suggesting this proposal is a waste of time?? Martinevans123 (talk) 15:02, 26 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
            • Quite the opposite. We have uniformity in titles because this improves our credibility as an encyclopedia, and helps technical tools to function (like templates that summon specific elements of titles). We could have complete randomness in titles, with uniformity available through redirects, but then we look amateur and our tools do not function as effectively. That is why consistency in article title is policy! bd2412 T 15:05, 26 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support: per the consistency criterion of WP:NAMINGCRITERIA, I agree that we should use either "X of Y" or "Y's X" consistently. The former is preferable as it sounds more encylopedic/formal in some cases (I think Franklin D. Roosevelt's paralytic illness sounds particularly informal/bizarre as a title). So I support both the specific page moves requested here, and any other page moves for articles whose titles are in the form "Y's X" (with the exception of famous phrases e.g. Newton's laws of motion). — Bilorv(c)(talk) 15:59, 26 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose - I feel Commonname stands as more important here. I'm not sure I buy that the "more encyclopedic/formal" criterion is going to stand true in all cases. As a tertiary point, while I have no doubt that complete uniformity would aid in future template building, has anyone checked to see non of the current ones would lead to disruption with the change (Not being a template guru, I was wondering)? Nosebagbear (talk) 21:02, 26 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support for consistency - all the "Health of Y" / "Y's health" pages should presumably have consistent titles. If anyone thinks these articles should be moved to "Y's X" instead of "X of Y" (and I kinda get why they'd say that), then start an RfC for it. But these pages should all be consistent no matter what, and for now, that's THIS format. Paintspot Infez (talk) 22:39, 26 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support "X of Y" sounds better and more encyclopedic than "Y's X". SemiHypercube ✎ 23:37, 26 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support impresses as more formal in tone Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 00:24, 27 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support - Admittedly, this is a choice of style. It is often less wordy to use an apostrophe. But, frankly, apostrophes are abhorrent and "of" simply sounds better (formality may or may not be debatable based on style guides). COMMONNAME is not really applicable (i.e. most of these would be sections in a main article but we have too much content on them), except in specialized cases (e.g. Widow's peak), which no one is proposing be moved. — Godsy (TALKCONT) 00:26, 27 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support The apostrophe in the title requires an escape character and reads "%27" in the URL. This means that using apostrophes in titles lowers the readability of the URL. I think that this is important enough to justify a general rule that whenever possible, prefer using "of" to an apostraphe. Blue Rasberry (talk) 17:58, 27 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support. WP:CONSISTENCY. This is just standard operating procedure, near universally in our article titles. It's a MOS:TONE matter. We only use a possessive when a) it's clearly the most common name (typically for eponymous laws and the like, and for proper names like Jane's Addiction), or in ultra-rare WP:IAR cases where the alternatives are too awkward for some reason; I can't even remember such a case by name, though I recall there being one 5 or 10 years go. Definitely the exception not the rule. — Preceding unsigned comment added by SMcCandlish (talk • contribs) 00:09, 28 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support For the same reasons as BD2412, Freshacconci, Blue Raspberry, SMcCandlish, et al. (Tone, consistency, URL encoding, problems with possessives of words ending in 's'.) Also support creating redirects if that will help with searching and linking (the moves will leave redirects, of course). Pelagic (talk) 05:35, 28 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support - Better form. Leave redirects. Carrite (talk) 15:33, 28 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support. WP:CONSISTENCY. Well done for catching that! The Duke of NonsenseWhat is necessary for thee?. 21:11, 28 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support per above. Consistency in this instance seems to yield many benefits. Wugapodes [thɔk] [ˈkan.ˌʧɻɪbz] 23:47, 28 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose. The main stated purpose seems to be to improve the category page "Health by individual". But making all the entries start "Something of Somebody" will make it look somewhat pedantic, IMO. I think the category page looks fine as it is, and is just as usable either way. Technical writing teaches using some variety in the text as desirable. I do agree that not using the apostrophe is an improvement, because an escape character is not needed. But that seems a very minor factor. Concerning "consistency", when of benefit, it is great. But it seems here that consistency is being taken to an extreme by requiring *all* the titles to be "Something of somebody". Now here is the downside. Each article has been named in a way that seems best for the article. Somebody with familiarity with the content has made their best decision. Now, with the change, some articles, including future articles (which there could be many, since many famous figures have a health problem), will be forced into a "consistent", but possibly less natural, wording, for the supposed benefit of the category page. I think this is backwards. I believe the main standard is, "Article titles are based on how reliable English-language sources refer to the article's subject". I think the move violates that core standard, so I oppose. The category page seems (to me) very secondary to the article. I think the change compromises the ability to best name some articles, so is damaging and counter-productive. I would like to request that an alternative be considered that would improve consistency without the damaging side effects of the proposed change. The articles "Somebody's health" could be required to be "Health of Somebody", since they really are of a pattern, and leave the others (monarchism, paralytic illness, asylum confinement) alone, to be named "how reliable English-language sources refer to the article's subject". 97.113.114.129 (talk) 06:37, 29 July 2018 (UTC) — 97.113.114.129 (talk) has made few or no other edits outside this topic. bd2412 T 13:02, 29 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment The "Murder of ...} practice is not an analogy. It was developed as a way of avoiding placing undue emphasis on the personal name, especially when the individual was non-notable otherwise. DGG ( talk ) 15:43, 29 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support as per WP:CONSISTENCY, and that it reads much better. --LukeSurl t c 15:05, 30 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.
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