Special Sub-Topic: Historical Illnesses Click Here To Play: Historical Illnesses

Franklin Rooselvelt

Polio. Strangely, Franklin Roosevelt was stricken with childhood paralysis (polio) as an adult. He was in a wheelchair for most of his presidency. The press was much more accomodating in those days and would rarely photograph him being carried or in awkward positions.

Al Capone

Syphilis. Poor Al, left prison, retired to Florida with syphillis. Interestingly, the third stage of the disease includes dementia.

George III

Porphyria. Yup! Porphyria, his urine was blue. Another illness that includes dementia as a symptom.

Isak Dinesen

Syphillis. Isak Dinesen was the pen name of Karen Blixen. Her most famous work was "Out of Africa". She contracted syphillis from her wandering husband, Baron Blixen. She left her farm in Kenya to return to Denmark for painful treatment and was spared the ravages of the later stages of the disease.

Vlad III (The Impaler)

None of the above. Vlad the Impaler was a 15th Century prince of Wallachia (currently inside Romania). Bram Stoker had read about him and used some of what he learned to create "Dracula". Good old Vlad impaled people, drank blood and was generally very baaad. He could have been suffering dementia from syphillis, but we don't know for sure.

Alexei Nikolaevich

Hemophilia. Son of Nicholas II of Russia. He was executed with his family by the Bolsheviks in 1918. It is believed that the royal family's neglect of Russia was partly brought about by their distraction by Alexei's illness. His mother was a granddaughter of Queen Victoria who carried the gene for hemophilia. Victoria married her progeny off to European heads of state, thus spreading the hemophilia.

Galileo

hernia. In letters to his daughter, Sister Maria Celeste, Galileo complained of many diseases in his old age. He mentions his hernia for which he wore a heavy iron truss. He may have suffered from many other diseases but we are not completely sure what they were. (Galileo's letters were destroyed but we know somethings about him based on her concerned responses -- her letters to him were preserved).

Thomas Jefferson

Deformed wrist. In France as US Ambassador, Jefferson jumped a fence to impress a woman (Maria Cosway - remember the head and heart letter?). He broke his wrist (yeah, the one that wrote the Declaration of Independence) for a woman! It didn't heal correctly.

Lord Byron

Club foot. The most romantic and handsome of poets had a club foot. This deformity is said to have affected him greatly.

Henry VI

Insanity. The son of the most influential ruler of Western Europe (Henry V - remember Agincourt?) suffered bouts of insanity all of his life. He was imprisoned and died (probably murdered by his enemies).