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Wolf argues that the color choices in van Gogh?s work could more plausibly be explained by digitalis poisoning. Digitalis, distilled from the foxglove plant, was a drug used to treat epilepsy. Both of van Gogh's portraits of Gachet depict the doctor with a bouquet of foxglove, a visual clue that art historians have taken as evidence that Gachet prescribed digitalis to his patient. Van Gogh had had seizures in the past, including the violent episode during which he cut off his own ear. Had van Gogh been treated for his seizures, Wolf believes that the artist may have developed digitalisinduced xanthopsia, or yellow-tinted vision. Repeated overdose of digitalis can also cause sufferers to envision halos around bright lights, much like the prominent rings around the stars of van Gogh's Starry Night.
Despite this fervor on the part of scientists to diagnose van Gogh through his paintings, the actual evidence is slim. Van Gogh was probably epileptic, but as Arnold and Loftus point out, there is no evidence that Gachet or any of van Gogh's previous doctors recognized their patient as such, let alone prescribed him sufficient doses of digitalis to alter his vision and artwork. Arnold and Loftus also note that a classic case of xanthopsia causes the eye to confuse yellow and blue on the spectrum -- meaning that van Gogh should have substituted yellow for blue in his palette. But van Gogh's paintings contain an abundance of blue in addition to yellow, as the brilliant sky of Starry Night demonstrates. Even the portraits of Dr. Gachet holding foxglove have blue backgrounds: one bright blue, the other a more subdued shade of gray-blue. Such a consistent use of blue with only a fluctuating use of yellow is not consistent with a toxic buildup of digitalis. Ultimately, Arnold and Loftus provide perhaps the best explanation for van Gogh?s color choice: "artistic preference."
In addition to his theories about xanthopsia and epilepsy, Wolf speculates that van Gogh probably had a form of manic depression that typically afflicts "creative people." Manic depression, according to Wolf, would explain many of van Gogh's strange and violent behaviors that were dismissed as "eccentricities" at the time. Wolf also cites psychiatrist Kay R. Jamison, who researched van Gogh's family history and determined that manic depression was possible. "Creative" manic depression would not be too far from Gachet's own ideas about melancholy -- indeed, creative manic depression seems like the diagnosis Gachet would have given van Gogh had he been versed in modern medical terminology. In addition to being truer to the perceptions his doctors had at the time, creative manic depression explains van Gogh's illness in terms of his art better than any analysis of rings and yellow tints can do, because it accounts for the fact that van Gogh's artistry could be closely linked with his illness without reducing his paintings to mere symptoms.