Famous and Infamous Patients 2 Quiz

Answer: Pituitary

If Mary had received treatment for this condition, as she could have today, perhaps she and Phillip would have had an heir and Elizabeth I would not have ascended the throne. Who would have been on the throne of England today?

Answer: Gout

Believing his illness to be a divine punishment, Phillip rarely complained but his condition was almost certainly inherited and his father Charles also died of it.

Answer: Phimosis (inability to retract the foreskin)

Family pressure to provide heirs to the throne forced the reluctant young king to undergo circumcision to correct the problem. His reluctance was understandable because successful anaesthesia for surgery was not performed until 1846 so this procedure would have been done without anaesthesia or pain relief (other than perhaps opium and/or alcohol).

Answer: He had them drowned in the Danube

At least today's doctors only have to worry about malpractice suits.

Answer: Addison's disease

Addison's disease is the result of deficiency in the secretion of hormones from the adrenal cortex. If she had lived today, Jane Austen could have received treatment for this illness.

Answer: Ear

Oscar Wilde died of an abscess of the middle ear which progressed to meningitis. The syphilis rumour persists partly because of the scandals and controversy that were a feature of his life and partly because his doctor recorded his death as "a tertiary symptom of the infection he contracted when he was twenty" (which was NOT specified as syphilis).

Answer: Stroke

About 3% of typhoid victims recover to become carriers, suffering no ill effects themselves but with the capacity to continually infect others. Mary Mallon was such a carrier. Because she worked in the food industry, and because her standards of hygiene were poor, she was constantly contaminating the food that she handled.

She refused to give up this line of work and moved and changed jobs frequently to stay one step ahead of the health authorities. Fifty-one original cases of typhoid and three deaths were directly attributed to her although countless more were indirectly credited to Typhoid Mary.

Answer: Euthanasia

King George had terminal cancer. After his death it was revealed that the King's personal physician, Lord Dawson, had carried out euthanasia at the king's request. Dawson recorded in his diary that he decided to terminate the king's life in the late evening, so that the announcement of George's death should first appear in the next morning's Times, rather than risk it appearing in the socially inferior afternoon papers.

Answer: Attention Deficit Disorder

According to some ADD websites, it is very likely that Einstein, Edison, Newton and Churchill were afflicted with ADD. Edison, Newton and Churchill did very badly in school. It is claimed that Einstein was four years old before he could speak and seven years old before he could read. ADD is characterised by learning and behavioural difficulties and yet the people affected are usually of above-average intelligence.

Other alleged famous ADD sufferers include Beethoven, Alexander Graham Bell, Leonardo Da Vinci and Benjamin Franklin.

Answer: Alzheimer's disease

Ronald Reagan revealed his battle with Alzheimer's disease in November 1995 in an open letter to the American people, however, it was clear that he was suffering from some form of dementia during his years in office (1981-1989), exhibiting symptoms of poor memory, disorientation and repetitive speech.