VISUAL HALLUCINATIONS ASSOCIATED WITH TUMORS OF THE OCCIPITAL LOBE

JAMES CRAIG,1in 1836, is credited with the first recorded case of visual hallucinations with postmortem findings of a lesion of an occipital lobe. His patient complained of seeing figures on the left with eyes open or closed over a 17-year period. At necropsy, a cavity, probably a thrombotic lesion, was found in the left occipital lobe (if the lesion was correctly recorded, the case was one of ipsilateral hallucinations). Fifty years later Seguin2reported that hallucinations always appear in the hemianoptic field. Since these reports, there has been much discussion in the literature, with no general agreement as to whether or not the occipital lobe can produce formed hallucinations,3whether the hallucinations have any lateralizing value,4whether other cortical areas can produce visual hallucinations,5and whether the degree of form taken on by the hallucinations depends on the area involved or on the innate