What
plague killed Pericles?
Were Claudius' mushrooms artificially poisoned?
What caused Beethoven's deafness?
Did Mozart really die of pneumonia?
Was Custer mentally ill?
History's Medical Mysteries....
Did Agrippina poison the Roman Emperor Claudius? Was General George Armstrong Custer mentally sound when he ordered the 7th Cavalry to attack at the Little Big Horn River? History is full of medical mysteries. After all, everyone has to die of something. But modern medical practitioners have actually found clues to the progress of diseases that still afflict mankind today by studying ancient sources who recorded the afflictions and demise of peoples of the past. Each year, at a clinicopathological conference sponsored in part by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs and VA Maryland Health Care System in conjunction with the University of Maryland School of Medicine, a panel of physicans led by Dr. Philip A. Mackowiak analyze the medical history of a famous person of the past. Using modern forensic science, they propose modern diagnoses for the individual and speculate on the effectiveness of medical procedures used by physicians of the period. Five of these cases are examined in the linked documents below. The documents are Adobe Acrobat and are all less than 1 Mb in size for efficient download. These files were produced from original articles provided by Dr. Mackowiak with his permission for noncommercial, educational use.
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What |
Were Claudius' mushrooms artificially poisoned? |
What caused Beethoven's deafness? |
Did Mozart really die of pneumonia? |
Was Custer mentally ill? |
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| Pericles.pdf (687 kb) | Claudius.pdf (780 kb) | Beethoven.pdf (718 kb) | Mozart.pdf (885 kb) | Custer.pdf (849 kb) |
Background image "A Sick Child Brought To
The Temple of Aesclepius",
John William Waterhouse, 1877, oil on canvas.
Page designed and created by Mary
Harrsch
Last updated:
01/08/2003