Article ID: CBB001320462

Retrodiagnoses: Investigating the Ills of Long-Dead Celebrities (2012)

unapi

The murky circumstances of Vladimir Lenin's death have made it popular among medical history sleuths. The most recent group to take it on was the 19th annual Historical Clinicopathological Conference (HCPC) in May. The HCPC examines cases of historical celebrities who suffered from mysterious ailments, such as Ludwig van Beethoven, Christopher Columbus, and King Herod. Diagnosing ancient emperors and explorers may seem an eccentric pursuit for doctors---the "patients" have long since died---but the HCPC is hardly alone. The quest to retrodiagnose dead celebrities has proved irresistible to doctors for over a century---although some historians wish that doctors would stop trying to revise history and let the dead rest in peace. Some also dismiss the work as unilluminating and note that DNA testing of the dead can cause distress among living descendents.

...More
Citation URI
https://data.isiscb.org/isis/citation/CBB001320462/

Similar Citations

Article Little, Lester K.; (2013)
Plague Historians in Lab Coats (/isis/citation/CBB001200343/)

Article King, Helen; (2012)
History without Historians? Medical History and the Internet (/isis/citation/CBB001210690/)

Article Löwy, Ilana; (2007)
The Social History of Medicine: Beyond the Local (/isis/citation/CBB000773193/)

Article Espinosa, Mariola; (2013)
Globalizing the History of Disease, Medicine, and Public Health in Latin America (/isis/citation/CBB001321226/)

Book Wright, David; (2011)
Downs: The History of a Disability (/isis/citation/CBB001200871/)

Article Martí-Henneberg, Jordi; (2011)
Geographical Information Systems and the Study of History (/isis/citation/CBB001211160/)

Article Feest, Uljana; Sturm, Thomas; (2011)
What (Good) Is Historical Epistemology? (/isis/citation/CBB001024687/)

Article Paola Radici Colace; (2013)
Il 'mestiere' di storico. La scrittura della storia dall'opinione alla ricostruzione scientifica (/isis/citation/CBB172173475/)

Book Alessandra Foscati; (2019)
Saint Anthony's Fire from Antiquity to the Eighteenth Century (/isis/citation/CBB689805866/)

Article Hirschhorn, Norbert; Longsworth, Polly; (2013)
Was It Epilepsy?: Misdiagnosing Emily Dickinson (1830--1886) (/isis/citation/CBB001201337/)

Article Florian Bruns; (2020)
Identität durch Geschichte (/isis/citation/CBB037557298/)

Book Anne Hanley; Jessica Meyer; David Cantor; (2021)
Patient voices in Britain, 1840–1948 (/isis/citation/CBB036891773/)

Article Giuseppe A Micheli; (2019)
Not just a one-man revolution: The multifaceted anti-asylum watershed in Italy (/isis/citation/CBB616269495/)

Article Rachel Mason Dentinger; Abigail Woods; (2018)
Introduction to “Working Across Species” (/isis/citation/CBB593874454/)

Article Arthur Rose; (2022)
Closure and the Critical Epidemic Ending (/isis/citation/CBB726446334/)

Authors & Contributors
Rose, Arthur
Foscati, Alessandra
Longsworth, Polly
Hirschhorn, Norbert
Hanley, Anne
Wright, David
Concepts
Historiography
Historical method
History of medicine, as a discipline
Disease and diseases
Medicine
History of science, as a discipline
Time Periods
21st century
20th century, late
19th century
20th century
Medieval
Ancient
Places
Great Britain
Spain
Latin America
Italy
Greece
Comments

Be the first to comment!

{{ comment.created_by.username }} on {{ comment.created_on | date:'medium' }}

Log in or register to comment