Diagnosing Darwin's multiple gastrointestinal diseases

Charles Darwin (Credit: Wikimedia)

Throughout most of Charles Darwin's adult life, the famed author of On the Origin of Species struggled with repeated episodes of severe abdominal pain, nausea and vomiting that could last for hours at a time, often occurring about three hours after breakfast, and thought to have been brought on by times of emotional stress.

England's physicians of the time could not properly diagnose the syndrome of cyclic vomiting, although they tried by suggesting its etiology was anything to do with allergies, gout, and mental overwork. But what of an assessment of Darwin's symptoms by modern physicians of today?

On Friday, May 6, modern physicians gathered to discuss Darwin's lifelong illness at the 18th Historical Clinicopathological Conference sponsored by University of Maryland Health Care System. The conference previously has examined and provided modern medical diagnoses of other prominent historical figures such as Abraham Lincoln and Edgar Allan Poe. The scientists chose Darwin for this year's conference to commemorate the naturalist's 200th birthday.

At the conference, the medical researchers determined that the nature of Darwin's sickness may be explained by multiple gastrointestinal illnesses he might of contracted while traveling to remote areas of South America, the Pacific, Far East, and Africa. A transmission of parasites, for example, may have led to what would become chronic "Chagas disease" and "peptic ulcer disease," further explaining the onset of Darwin's cardiac symptoms and eventual heart disease.