The Conversagraph:

A new linguistic style.

The author, Vernon M Neppe MD, PhD, has communicated via an unusual paragraph style: the conversagraph. How do we provide paragraphs for dialogue? Do we deliberately create different paragraphs for every dialogue portion even when we use no quotation marks as in this book? Or do we introduce conversagraphs where the relevant dialogue on a single topic remains in the same paragraph. The following are examples from the book:

These are examples of dialogue that continues through two dialogue sessions and when there is a theme change, a new conversagraph is started:

How long has she been this way?
For a couple of days. She was at home until this evening. You can see she is dehydrated-look how dry her skin is. Part of this fluid deficiency is her not drinking water and the other side is her diarrhea. I think her diarrheal soiling may be because of her non-caring.
What do you mean, Doctor?
She's in a state where she totally neglects herself. She doesn't move and cannot care even for such functions as excretion of body fluids. Without treatment, Priscilla would die in a week or less.

So what should be done?
We will give her very high doses of the specific B vitamins that she's deficient in-thiamine and nicotinic acid in large amounts, several thousand milligrams through an intravenous line.
We need to give her nothing else? What about strong psychiatric drugs?
No. Ed. We're treating the actual cause. Watch for a miracle.

The two conversagraphs above can be contrasted with a single conversagrah below:

This is remarkable, Doctor! But why does Pellagra happen?
Because the brain's biochemical pathways are not able to perform what should be done. The specific deficiency is niacin, and previously in the deep south in the United States, where it was prevalent in the 1920s, this B vitamin was actually called "pellag ra preventive factor". As you saw, Edward, Priscilla had totally slowed down to an absolute statue, until we could give her the right fuels to re-invigorate her.

If you want to see more examples, check out the excerpts page.

More Information on Scicton

Style of Sciction
Sciction: Science Through Literature
Why Cry the Beloved Mind and all of Sciction is Classified as Non-fiction.
From other sites: So Brain Medications Help (athealth.com Guest Editorial)

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