Charles Darwin's mitochondria

Diagnoses for Charles Darwin's Illness: A Wealth of Inaccurate Differential Diagnoses

Charles Darwin suffered from a relapsing, debilitating illness for much of his adult life with numerous, differing symptoms. His occasional problems as a student, his seasickness throughout the voyage of the HMS Beagle, and his brief illnesses when ashore in South America and Australia were all early expressions of this illness. Diagnoses for Darwin's illness are as numerous as his symptoms and are equally variable. Many diagnoses reflect the medical fashion of their time; psychological and psychogenic diagnoses once flourished. These diagnoses have recently been comprehensively reviewed in an uncritical and unbiased account. Rather than a repeat review of diagnoses this paper aims to critique and make a critical appraisal of the diagnoses given. As stated, they are not all right. Some are not wrong but are simply incomplete. Pathological mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) mutations are the cause of a variety of childhood diseases and more recently have been recognized as the cause of some adult-onset conditions with a plethora of presenting symptoms. The diagnosis favored here is that Darwin suffered from such a disorder due in his case to a maternally inherited pathological mtDNA mutation. This proposal should be seen in the context of self-certainty and subject to similar critical appraisal. Diagnosing Darwin may have a unique, correct solution, a solution that would benefit those who suffer from a similar disorder today and who, like Darwin, are misdiagnosed, misunderstood, and inappropriately treated.

Charles Darwin's Mitochondrial Disorder: Possible Neuroendocrine Involvement

Charles Darwin, the famous naturalist, suffered relapsing, debilitating illness for most of his adult life with a plethora of symptoms. The diagnosis favoured here for this illness is that of an adult-onset mitochondrial disorder due to a maternally inherited, pathological mitochondrial DNA mutation clinically manifesting as MELAS (mitochondrial encephalopathy, lactic acidosis, and stroke-like episodes) syndrome. This diagnosis accounts for Darwin's primary symptoms; in addition, it accounts for the various unusual illnesses that afflicted his siblings and maternal (Wedgwood) ancestors. Symptoms of Darwin's illness may be related to dysfunction of cells with high energy requirements; this includes cells constituting the cardiac conduction system, cerebral endothelial cells, neurons, neuroepithelial cells of the vestibular apparatus, and, as proposed here, central and peripheral neuroendocrine cells. Although Darwin's episodes of sudden facial flushing, his nocturnal panic attacks, and his severe gastrointestinal symptoms are not readily explained, these symptoms may relate to neuroendocrine dysfunction, either an uncontrolled release of stimulatory hormone or impaired inhibitory control. It is also conceivable that the autonomic system had been involved. A study of Darwin's illness may benefit those who suffer from similar symptoms today.

Syndrome du jour: The historiography and moral implications of Diagnosing Darwin

Diagnosing Darwin's health problems has a long history. Innumerable diagnoses have been proffered in letters, articles, and a handful of dedicated books. Diagnostic speculation has exhibited contrasting somatogenic or psychogenic preferences. Psychogenic accounts dominated mid-century but were soon challenged by somatic explanations citing specific infectious or toxic aetiologies. This tension remains, although psychogenic accounts have tended to be swamped by an array of somatogenic diagnoses championed by biomedical specialists. As a whole, this parade of diagnoses has a striking syndrome du jour quality. Successive conjectures speak of the preoccupations and diagnostic fads of their particular age. Moreover, for many participants in this diagnostic game, unconscious presentism combined with self-serving projection, turning the question of what ailed Darwin into something of a Rorschach test. Never far from the surface was a sometimes-fraught tussle over the man's reputation, animated by the moral valences of the conjectures in play. In a broader sense, this diagnostic game has shaped biographical accounts of Darwin and his career in some significant ways.

Charles and Emma Darwin: Under the 'influence' of chloroform anaesthesia

A number of Charles Darwin's biographies record the administration of chloroform by Darwin to his wife Emma, during her labour and delivery of her eighth child, Leonard. This occurred on 15 January 1850, a little over two years after James Young Simpson in Edinburgh described the analgesic action of inhaled chloroform. An online search of more than 9000 items of Darwin's correspondence at Cambridge University and other sources revealed that he was an active proponent and user of chloroform in midwifery, for euthanising animals he studied, as well as in botanical studies of carnivorous plants. He also discovered that the concurrent inhalation of chloroform, during its administration to his wife, alleviated his distressing anxiety which he suffered when present at her earlier confinements.

Charles Darwin's (1809-1882) illness - the role of post-traumatic stress disorder

During most of his adult life, in counterpoint to his fame in describing the theory of evolution, Charles Darwin was chronically ill. He consulted many doctors with only limited and temporary success. His symptoms were many and varied. His doctors favoured dyspepsia or suppressed gout as the diagnosis. The Water Cure was only effective initially. Many diagnoses have been proposed by physicians since then. Perhaps he suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), not instead of but as well as other physical problems. His symptoms match with criteria for PTSD. Traumatic episodes from his life are considered in this paper: his mother's painful, sudden death from an acute abdominal event when he was eight; his reaction to seeing operations without anaesthetic; the deaths of three of his children, including his beloved daughter, Annie, aged ten; and being overwhelmed by his chronic, unrelenting symptoms. Trauma had not been conceptualised as a diagnosis in Darwin's time. Rather, hysteria and, in war, irritable heart were names given to what is now called PTSD.