Part 1 of Essay
Diseases need heroes: men or women who have triumphed despite the disease. For the child with polio, one could always point to Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who campaigned on leg braces to become governor of New York and then president of the United States. For epilepsy, there is always Joan of Arc or Napoleon. The blind and ....

Part 2 of Essay
.... a minor stroke that left him with weakness of the right arm and hand, sensory disturbances in the tips of several fingers, and an inability to write in his usual right-handed manner. As often happens following minor strokes, there was recovery: his right-handed writing ability returned within a year. Was his career impeded? No, in 1902 he became the president of Princeton. But the problem recurred in 1904. In 1906 it happened again, this time with blindness in the left eye (also supplied by the left interna ....