Henry VIII's Syphilis and Other Diagnoses

hello and welcome to read in the past I'm dr. Kat and before I jump into today's video topic I just want to say a massive thank you to all of you that are watching and particularly those of you that have subscribed to this channel and that's whether you are a brand-new subscriber or if you've been here for a while to put it quite simply the last week and the growth that I've seen happening on this channel the amount of interest it seems to be generating has been the most delightful and wonderful surprise thank you all and I'm particularly grateful to see the amazing comments of support and also the fascinating questions and really interesting discussions that are taking place in the comment section of this channel but also on my social media and over my email and I want to make it clear that if I don't get back to you if you don't senior responding please please don't think that I've ignoring you I intend to read every comment that comes in to me and also to respond where appropriate and also possible but I believe that the most important thing for me to focus on is researching filming editing and uploading new content for you all I do hope that you understand and that you will stick with me keep watching and most importantly please please keep commenting but for now thank you ever so much and with that being said I suppose it's time that we jump into today's video topic and I hope you will excuse the slightly click Beatty title so as I mentioned I have really enjoyed reading all of your comments and I've also noticed a little bit of a trend over the last week I've seen a lot of people discussing the possible diagnosis for Henry the 8th and that's pretty understandable many of us I assume are fairly hyper focused on health and illness at the present time however this method of reading the past and of trying to understand prominent historical figures is by no means new it's not something that came about during the covert 19 crisis it's got a far older tradition that better known as retrospective or posthumous diagnosis as far as I'm concerned it works best when it is an interdisciplinary and collaborative exercise in medical history by combining historical investigation with medical diagnostic techniques for mind and body I think we are potentially able to open up new ways of reading the past and its people through the appropriate use of techniques such as this arguably we can at least attempt to question if a necessarily answer things such as Henry the sixth was his period of catatonia a result of schizophrenia clinical depression or some other course was which of the third really a hunchback was the well-documented madness of george the third down to porphyria or perhaps bipolar disorder what about Queen Victoria her role as genetic carrier for haemophilia what it meant for her family and its dynasty we could use these techniques to look at Elizabeth the first is it possible that we can find traces evidence for her having had Marfan syndrome or an endocrine abnormality that made her intersex however there is one historical figure who as far as I can see has racked up more diagnoses than anybody else and it's our boy Henry the eighth the figure that we're talking about today so let's do this [Music] [Music] to make this video I put together what I hope and believe to be a fairly comprehensive list of the various diagnoses that at one time or another have been attached to King Henry the eighth now for clarity I'm not saying that one person has ever suggested that Henry the Eighth had all of these things going on at once rather these are a number of different suggestions options and questions coming from a variety of sources and as far as I'm concerned that is the way in which retrospective or posthumous diagnosis functions best when it is viewed as a forum in which we can query things pose questions and provide options I think it falls down mostly when people think that their solution is the truth or the fact when they think that they have arrived at the final end of the road before jump into the following list I want to offer the following caveat as I am NOT a medically trained person but I still want to look at the causes and symptoms for the diagnosis that have been connected to Henry the eighth's at one time or another I am going to have to rely on other resources particularly I'm going to be looking for something that is a reputable medical resource rather than looking at my own personal research I am going to be using principally the NHS websites and I've chosen that because I believe it to be reputable first and foremost but also because it uses language that I as a complete medical layperson find at least remotely intelligible and that certainly was not the case for all of the other resources that I attempted to interact with for this particular video however not all of the conditions that have been tied to Henry the eighth are listed on the NHS website thus I'm going to have to refer to other websites and I will make it clear what I am doing so I plan to use quotes and screenshots to talk about these causes and symptoms and I think we're necessary and also useful I'm going to highlight the bits that I think potentially connect best to Henry the eighth or at least what we know of him of his supposed behaviors and conditions and also of the potential surrounding events that may have affected them a bit but that list now did Henry the eighth suffer from hypochondria well Henry is reported to have displayed a seemingly morbid fear of getting ill and of being around those who were ill he had an army of physicians and also stockpile treatments and concoctions and auctions to ward off disease he would free a pace even the rumor of sickness reached his ears so would he be diagnosed with this condition today well let's look at the symptoms health anxiety as it is also known or hypochondria may be diagnosed when someone displays some or all of the following symptoms those which may relate to Henry includes constant worry about your health always asking people for reassurance that you're not ill worried that your doctor or medical tests may have missed something avoiding anything to do with illness it's worth also mentioning that this resultant anxiety can cause symptoms like headaches or a racing heartbeat these could be mistaken for signs of illness did Henry the eighth's survived smallpox according to Robert Hutchinson four years into Henry's reign in December 1513 the Venetian ambassador reported that Henry's doctors feared for his life because he had contracted smallpox as we know he must have recovered from this illness and there are certainly no mention of him being heavily or even visibly scarred by this deadly virus according to the World Health Organization smallpox is an acute contagious disease caused by the variola virus a member of the orthopox virus family it was one of the world's most devastating diseases known to humanity the last known natural Crave's in somalia in 1977 and it was declared eradicated in 1980 following a global immunization campaign led by the World Health Organization smallpox is transmitted from person to person via infective droplets during close contact with infected symptomatic people but what about malaria if we return to the work of Robert hutchinson he also asserts that Henry experienced two bouts of malaria one in May 1521 and the other in 1528 other scholars have stated that Henry had his first bout of malaria earlier than this perhaps as early as 1511 and while malaria is certainly not endemic to Britain today it is believed that the landscape was sufficiently different in the 16th century with marshlands and swamps for malaria and the requisite mosquitos to thrive there were reports of Henry going down with severe fevers certainly if we look at the symptoms attributed to malaria we see things that track with that particularly the fact that it causes a high temperature of 38 degrees Celsius or above and that it leaves a person feeling hot and shivering unlike Henry today we have anti-malarial medication that can both prevent and treat the condition by looking at the word malaria itself we are in fact given a crucial weigh-in to look at how our medieval and early modern counterparts understood this particular illness how they thought was transmitted and therefore how they thought it could be avoided malaria literally refers to bad air mouth area and it connects with the humoral theory of miasma the thought that evil air and bad smells could stick in the body therefore if you could avoid these things then you could also avoid malaria it was Henry the eighth's a migraine sufferer on the 10th of March 15:24 it appears there was an incident while jousting Henry is believed to have forgotten to push down his visor when he was running in the list against his best friend Charles Brandon Brandon strap Henri above his eye and in this Henry was incredibly lucky but he was not blinded or disfigured apparently he continued to joust that day but it is said that from this moment onwards the King suffered from recurrent and painful migraines so can a head injury caused migraine well according to the NHS website the exact cause of migraines is unknown but they're thought to be the result of abnormal brain activity temporarily affecting nerve signals chemicals and blood vessels in the brain so for me that's not an outright no theoretically a traumatic injury such as this could well be the cause of migraines henry is said to have grown increasingly short-tempered is it possible that we can draw a connection with this onset of migraines looking at the symptoms we have here and perhaps also from your own personal experience maybe you are migraine sufferers could this maybe explain why he became more short-tempered could we argue that with this recurrent migraine pain Henry's fuse was just a little bit shortened with no over-the-counter pain cares the Tudor treatment for headaches or migraine would have been a Herber one coming from the physic garden or the woodland and there is no doubt in my mind considering the army of physicians and apothecaries that Henry the Eighth had at his disposal that he would have had access to any and all herbal concoctions that might have been suggested as a treatment what about Henry the eighth's famously terrible infected and ulcerated legs Henry's leg ulcers seemed to have been a recurrent problem potentially exacerbated by a variety of courses and events over the years early on in around 1527 it is suggested that his own tight garters may have been to blame essentially causing a varicose ulcer and later jousting injury of 1536 which I will be discussing in greater depth in a moment may have caused fractures to the leg bones which resulted in an open weeping ulcer lastly his ever increasing girth and weight like to prevent it the healing of these ulcers and worsen their condition according to the NHS website a venous leg ulcers can develop after a minor injury if there's a problem with the circulation of blood in your leg veins if this happens pressure inside the veins increases venous leg ulcers are open often painful sores in the skin that take more than two weeks to heal they usually develop on the inside of the leg just above the ankle and certainly most sources that I've encountered hint that his leg ulcer was on his calf rather than on his thigh which i believe is how it is portrayed in the tudors TV series and if we look to these signs of an infection of a leg ulcer I think it's arguable that Henry was displaying them worsening pain a green or unpleasant discharge coming from the ulcer redness and swelling of the skin around the ulcer a high temperature or fever and an unpleasant smell coming from the ulcer is this evidence of Henry's painful weeping and stinky leg modern treatment options include the use of antibiotics which of course were not available to Henry herbal poultices with healing and antiseptic properties would have to do instead sadly and frankly it's agonizing to think about it seems that Henry's legs and his ulcers only got worse eventually it was found to be dangerous to Henry's life to allow these leg ulcers to close up on one occasion when his leg also did close Henry is said to have taken to his bed incredibly unwell eventually going black in the face the suggestion is that when this leg also closed there was already an infection in the bone perhaps the bone was broken or perhaps he also managed to get down to the bone therefore Henry was starting to suffer from blood poisoning or sepsis after this terrifying moment it seems that Henry's doctors were doing everything they could to stop these ulcers from closing up essentially from healing they did everything to keep them open and weeping to get that poison out of his body and while they may well have been correct to do so in the absence of antibiotics I find the very notion of it to be completely horrifying let's look at that second dousing accident that I talked about earlier was it the cause of a traumatic brain injury for Henry the eighth on the 24th of January 1536 wild rousting Henry the eighth fell from his horse some report that the full weight of that armored horse also left on top of him at this time the result was unconsciousness apparently Henry was quote for two hours without speech and quote in addition to possibly exacerbating or re-injuring his leg ulcers some asserted at this time Henry the Eighth received a personality changing traumatic brain injury in regards to this as far as I'm concerned some of these symptoms have more than a little ring of truth after severe head injury you may experience changes to your feelings and behavior for example you may be angrier or more easily irritated than before you may be less sensitive to other people's feelings or lose your inhibitions and behave in a way that other people consider inappropriate some people go on to develop a mental health condition after severe head injuries such as depression generalized anxiety disorder or post-traumatic stress disorder which apparently can occur even if you have no memory of the injury occurring there are many who will assert that from this jousting accident on the 24th of January 1536 a series of events began this is the moment in which they say Henry the eighth was changed irreversibly it made him into a man who just a few months later in May 1536 would stand by as his wife and many of his friends were arrested tried convicted and executed for treason but what do you think did Henry the eighth's suffer a traumatic brain injury that made him into a tyrant another alleged result of this jousting accident might have been that it caused Henry to have a more sedentary lifestyle however this change of lifestyle was also coupled with the fact that Henry refused to change another lifestyle factor namely his diet he still ate as much as he ever did but he certainly wasn't moving in the same way it is clear if we look at his armor that Henry gained an enormous amount of weight and if we look at the risk factors for type 2 diabetes it certainly seems that he is following the track at the time of the accident itself in 1536 Henry was already over 40 and in the aftermath of the accident he certainly gained a lot of weight rendering him obese if we look at the symptoms of type 2 diabetes perhaps we can also find a trace back to Henry the fact that cuts or wounds take longer to heal might myth explain the problems with his ulcers type 2 diabetes can also cause blurred vision and perhaps it goes some way to explain the reports of Henry's deteriorating eyesight as he aged did Henry the eighth have Cushing syndrome Cushing syndrome is a condition caused by having too much of the hormone cortisol in your body this increase in cortisol can be caused by pituitary or adrenal tumors however these tumors are usually benign or non-cancerous if we look at the symptoms of Cushing's we can perhaps see a mirror being held after Henry the eighth the fact that one of the main signs is weight gain and more body fat and this can be visible shown in a red puffy rounded face was Cushing's the true cause of Henry's reportedly low libido and evident paternity problems did it drive depression and mood swings the next two conditions that I want to talk about unfortunately do not have entries on the NHS website so I've had to go elsewhere and find another reputable source for the relevant infamy I need in relation to them from what I understand they also seem to be connected conditions one a result potentially of the other and in terms of diagnosing Henry with these conditions that seems to be a relatively recent phenomenon let's look at those conditions did Henry the eighth's have macleod syndrome as a result of his Kell positive blood MacLeod syndrome is a rare genetic condition according to the genetics home reference of the US National Library of Medicine MacLeod syndrome is primarily a neurological disorder that occurs almost exclusively in boys and men the signs and symptoms of McLeod syndrome usually begin in mid adulthood behavioral changes such as lack of self-restraint the inability to take care of oneself anxiety depression and changes in personality may be the first signs of its condition from my reading MacLeod syndrome is connected to the Kell blood group and this blood group has been linked with some other issues that were faced by Henry and his family for more information I looked at Science Daily and found this article which refers to research conducted at Southern Methodist University by the bio archaeologist Katrina banks Whitley and the anthropologist Kyra Kramer their research asserts the following the numerous miscarriages suffered by Henry's wives could be explained if the Kings blood carried the Kell antigen a Kell negative woman who has multiple pregnancies with a Kell positive man can produce a healthy Kell positive child in a first pregnancy but the antibody she produces during that first pregnancy will cross the placenta and attack a Kell positive fetus in subsequent pregnancies the pattern of Carol blood group incompatibility is consistent with pregnancies of Henry's first two wives Catherine of Aragon and Anne Boleyn if a Kell positive father impregnates a Cal negative mother each pregnancy has a 50/50 chance of being l+ the first pregnancy typically carries the term and produces a healthy infant even if the infant is Kal positive and the mother is Kel negative but the mother's subsequent Kel positive pregnancies are at risk because the mothers antibodies will attack the Kel positive fetus as a foreign body any baby that is Cal negative will not be attacked by the mothers antibodies and will carry the term if otherwise healthy so the corn to this theory Mary Tudor the daughter of Catherine and Henry the eighth must have been kill negative and perhaps this was indeed the case because as this article reminds us fetal mortality not infertility is the Cal legacy last but by no means least it's time to look at the heavy hitter in terms of the question of potential diagnosis for Henry the eighth did the king contract syphilis syphilis is a sexually transmitted bacterial infection when there are symptoms they can include small painless sores or ulcers that typically appear on the penis vagina or around the anus but can occur in other places such as the mouth but some have gone further to suggest that syphilis was the true cause of Henry's ulcerated legs if syphilis is left untreated for years it can spread to the brain or other parts of the body and cause serious long-term problems so was Henry's change in behavior caused by syphilis did syphilis also cause his wives to have such problems in childbearing because if a woman becomes infected while she's pregnant or becomes pregnant when she already has syphilis it can be very dangerous for her baby if it's not treated infection in pregnancy can cause miscarriage stillbirth or a serious infection in the baby known as congenital syphilis today syphilis is treated using antibiotics in one of two ways which are shown here but in Tudor times syphilis was treated with mercury the saying went a night with Venus and a lifetime with actually mercury would be rubbed or pressed into the skin it could be taken orally or vaporized for inhalation the treatment also required weeks of secluded bedrest mercury is poisonous and can result in mental instability organ damage and death but it was the best they had and Henry's physicians would have certainly recognized the symptoms of syphilis if they had been present and visible but there is no evidence of his physicians acquiring or holding mercury nor was there any mention of Henry being absent from public view for the required weeks of treatment that would have certainly been noticed and it was exactly the sort of explosive information that an ambassador or spy would have felt compelled to disclose to their own ruler or employer when I think about all of the potential diagnoses that we could use to understand Henry VIII ate a little bit better syphilis stands out it gets the most coverage it has the most noise surrounding it doesn't it but perhaps that noise is misplaced the syphilis diagnosis doesn't have a lot of evidence to support it in fact contrary to that the weight of evidence seems to run counter to syphilis being a logical choice but of course that's just my opinion and I'd love to know what you think I think we probably should also confront and ask ourselves some harder questions is this technique valuable does retrospective or posh misdiagnosis do more harm than good to the study of history well I would argue that it is a valuable technique but for it to be valuable for it not to be something that is damaging we need to be aware of the following pitfalls to do our very best to avoid them first up anachronism I think it's really important that we remember that we are using terms and attempting to view the past through a linguistic and diagnostic framework that would have been effectively meaningless to those we attempted to study we must also be aware of the potential ethical concerns surrounding what we're doing in looking to diagnose long dead figures we are behaving in ways that I believe no GP consultant psychologist or psychiatrist would ever ethically behave as far as I'm aware they wouldn't be comfortable with trying to diagnose somebody that they haven't had a consultation with much less somebody that they had never even set eyes on and that's key we aren't going to set eyes on these people I think we can practice this technique in a valuable and meaningful fashion as long as we constantly hold ourselves to account and always remember that we are never going to get a definitive psychiatric or physical profile of these posthumous figures of course that is barring a substantial rip in the space-time continuum that allows us to travel back sit down with them and do such a diagnosis in person now you may be thinking well there is another way and yes there is we could look at the corporal remains of these people we could exhume their bodies look for traces of genetic illness or in fact of illnesses that may have left their trace on the boat but we are talking about royal figures Henry the eighth and for that body to be exhumed for this kind of testing it would of course require permission and it would I believe require the Queen's permission and I put the chances of that ever being granted at roughly zero percent of course we did have access to one King very recently which is the third but the rediscovery of his remains is an anomalous stroke of luck and I'm sure since he has been officially reinterred we will not be seeing those remains ever again as far as I'm concerned this is the beauty of retrospective or posthumous diagnosis the fact that it opens up to us this enormous number of possibilities of potential answers the fact that it doesn't get bogged down in asserting that something is a universal overarching fact or truth and I'm not the only one thinks this way I want to look at a quote by Lucy Worsley when she was writing an article for the IEEE online in it she states the following so many caveats exists about the validity of diagnosing people in history with modern ailments but I'll probably go on doing it because I think that it's a powerful tool for awakening a curiosity about the past among people who don't think they're interested it's a way of giving someone whose name is only familiar from dull and worthy textbooks an unexpected human side but I want to know what you think do you think this is a valuable technique and if so why and while you're there and thinking about this topic what would you diagnose Henry with would it be one of these conditions or many of them let me know in the comment section beneath this video or you can come and find me over on my social media as always I will leave links to my Instagram and Twitter in the description box you can follow me there and we can continue this conversation I do hope you've enjoyed this video and found it useful if you did then please let me know by hitting the thumbs up please also subscribe the channel and while you're there hit a little notification bell next subscribe button so that YouTube totally would have next uploaded I hope you're gonna have a great day whatever you're doing and I look forward to speaking to all in my next video take care of yourselves bye bye for now [Music] [Music]

Channel: undefined

Views: 355,627

Rating: 4.8983269 out of 5

Keywords: Henry VIII, Posthumous Diagnosis, Retrospective Diagnosis, Medical History, Education, Literature, Culture, History, Early Modern, Renaissance

Id: CBY5h9t6y0w

Length: 30min 1sec (1801 seconds)

Published: Fri May 01 2020