Mental Illness in History Trivia Quiz

Answer: porphyria

George III, the third Hanoverian monarch and the first born in England, was the father of fifteen children. His mental illness exhibited itself early on in his reign, which began in 1760. One day in 1788, he attacked his oldest son, trying to smash his head against a wall. According to witnesses, during this episode George was foaming at the mouth and his eyes were bloodshot.

The king was placed in a straight-jacket and eventually a special iron chair designed for restraint. Records show that he suffered periods of intense gloom broken by spells of cheerfulness, which sound a lot like what would be called bipolar disorder today.

It is thought that George suffered from porphyria, a rare genetic disorder which interferes with the body's chemical balance; untreated, it can cause insanity.

The symptoms, which include rashes, abdominal pain, and reddish blue urine, were all exhibited by him. By April 1789, George's doctors announced him "cured" of his madness; however, he continued to suffer from poor health and had further mental breakdowns in 1801 and 1804.

In 1810 George's insanity became permanent, after which his son George took over his kingly duties. George III died on January 29, 1820, blind, deaf and insane at Windsor Castle.

Answer: Lohengrin

Ludwig II, a member of the Wittelsbach dynasty, was born in Nymphenburg Castle in Munich in 1845. He became King of Bavaria at the tender age of 18 and was more interested in spending royal money than in governing. His legacy to the world are the stupendous castles of Neuschwanstein, Linderhof, and Herrenchiemsee, all in Germany.

Although the fairy tale Neuschwanstein is the best known, his favorite was Linderhof, the only one to actually be finished. A great patron of the arts, Ludwig was enamoured with the German composer Richard Wagner, perhaps to the point of obsession; his favorite opera was "Lohengrin", the story of the Swan Knight. (The name for the castle Neuschwanstein means literally "new swan home"). "Lohengrin" was the first opera Ludwig ever saw, at age 16, and it had a profound effect on him; he may have even been delusional, believing himself to be the Swan Knight.

He addressed his letters to his fiancée, Sophie "My dear Else", the name of Lohengrin's beloved. He even had a knight's costume, found after his death. Ludwig was certified insane in 1886 and, a few days later, on June 13, the bodies of him and his physician were found drowned in Lake Starnberg. Did the doctor attempt to save Ludwig from suicide, and then drown himself, or did Ludwig intentionally drown his physician, then himself? No one knows.

Answer: post-partum depression

Post-partum depression, which affects women after childbirth, can be a very serious and disabling condition, even leading to post-partum psychosis. As history shows us, the affliction is nothing new; Queen Maria Eleonore of Brandenburg (1599-1655), wife of King Gustav II Adolph of Sweden, was said to have suffered extreme depression and hysteria following her four pregnancies.

In 1636, she actually lost parental rights to her daughter, Christina, because of her "madness".

Answer: Schumann

German composer Robert Schumann (1810-1856), one of the premier Romantic composers, began writing music at age 6. He began to experience symptoms of mental illness as early as age 18, but his illness grew worse with age. It is possible that there was some sort of genetic predisposition to mental illness; Schumann's father had died of a "mental breakdown", and his sister had committed suicide.

As his mental state deteriorated, he began to have hallucinations. Although he had contemplated suicide often, his first attempt was in 1854, when he said goodbye to his wife Clara and threw himself into the Rhine.

After being fished out, he was placed in an asylum, where he remained until his death on July 29, 1856.

Answer: Leo Tolstoy

Russian writer Leo Tolstoy (1828-1910), best known for the novels "War and Peace" and "Anna Karenina", suffered from pathological depression that began to manifest around age 50. The generous man with the big furry beard was said to have had a life-long obsession with death and to have contemplated suicide.

The great thinker was constantly searching for the elusive "meaning of life", which some believe may have brought about a kind of spiritual crisis.

Answer: Vaclav Nijinsky

Vaclav (or Vaslav) Nijinsky was born on March 12, 1890, in Kiev. The son of dancers, he entered the Imperial School of Dancing in St. Petersburg at age 9. He founded the Ballet Russe in 1909 and became known for his controversial performances, in which he danced nearly nude and simulated sexual acts.

It was said that his career began to wane after his marriage to Hungarian dancer Romola de Pulszky; in 1919 he entered a mental hospital for the first time. Sadly, he never performed again, spending the remainder of his life being cared for by his wife and in mental hospitals.

The "God of Dance" died in a London hospital on April 8, 1950.

Answer: a prostitute

The tortured life of Dutch painter Vincent Van Gogh began on March 30, 1853. At the tender age of 16, he received what would be the first of many rejections from women; this one was the daughter of his landlady. He studied for the priesthood, but didn't feel suited for the profession.

By the age of 27, the poor guy was convinced that he was a failure at everything he did and was destined to be a loser (this is a classic sign of depression). In October 1888, Van Gogh had a violent argument with his roommate and fellow painter Paul Gauguin.

After Gauguin left, Van Gogh followed him with a knife, although it is unsure if he actually intended to attack his friend. Instead, Van Gogh went home and proceeded to use the knife to slice off the lower part of his left ear.

This he wrapped in a cloth and presented to a prostitute as a "gift". The following year, after experiencing auditory hallucinations (a sign of psychosis), Van Gogh committed himself to St. Remy mental asylum in France. While there, he painted pictures of the cypress trees that he saw from his window.

In 1890 Van Gogh moved to Auvers, a village north of Paris, where he would paint the only painting sold during his lifetime. On July 27, 1890, he somehow acquired a gun and took it out into the French countryside, where he shot himself in the abdomen. He then walked up to the room in which he was staying and lay in his bed, quietly bleeding to death over two days.

Answer: Charles Dickens

While Dickens was unipolar, the others were bipolar, or manic-depressive. Bipolar disorder occurs when the person's mood swings dramatically from manic to depressed. This is a very common mental illness today, and responds well to medication, usually the drug lithium.

A unipolar disorder, on the other hand, fixates on one end of the mood spectrum- in Dickens' case, depression. The English writer who painted such drab portraits of smoky, foggy streets and mean characters was, in fact, clinically depressed himself. Dickens (1812-1870) had once stated that he wrote detailed scenes of people's pain and suffering because he enjoyed the power he had over the reader in this manner.

He died at age 58, while working on "The Mystery of Edwin Drood".

Answer: Abe and Mary Lincoln

Ironically, many consider Lincoln America's greatest President, while his wife Mary Todd Lincoln wins the title of least popular First Lady. There are many sources, such as Carl Sandburg's in-depth biography of the President, that document serious bouts of depression in both Lincolns. Abe was known to be melancholy and suffer from periods of extreme depression, which he called "the hypo" (for hypochondriasis).

He was given a pill called "blue mass", containing the poison mercury, commonly given to people suffering from "hypo". Perhaps Abe himself put it best in a letter to John Stuart, his first law partner: "I am now the most miserable man living. If what I feel were equally distributed to the whole human family, there would not be one cheerful face on the earth. Whether I shall ever be better I can not tell; I awfully forebode I shall not. To remain as I am is impossible; I must die or be better, it appears to me." Said William Herndon, his third law partner: "He was a sad-looking man; his melancholy dripped from him as he walked." After his death, Mary Lincoln was committed to an asylum; she, too, had suffered periods of sadness and despondency throughout her life. (Quotes from Abraham Lincoln's Research Site, home.att.net/~rjnorton/Lincoln84.html)

Answer: Charles Darwin

English naturalist Charles Darwin (1809-1882), known for his theory of natural selection, is today believed to have suffered from a combination of panic disorder and agoraphobia. In Darwin's times, such terms were unknown; from his mid-twenties on he suffered from a series of mysterious illnesses that were blamed on such diverse things as bad nerves, tropical disease, arsenic poisoning, intellectual exhaustion, dyspepsia, and "suppressed gout".

In his journal, Darwin described a "sensation of fear ... accompanied by troubled beating of the heart, sweat, trembling of muscles..", which sounds very much like a panic attack. Darwin was said to be gregarious and fun-loving until around 1837, a year after his return from his five-year voyage to South America and the Pacific aboard "HMS Beagle", when he began to experience heart palpitations and other symptoms associated with anxiety.

In an article in the "Journal of the American Medical Association", Thomas Barloon and Russell Noyes of the University of Iowa College of Medicine theorized that it was his social phobia/agoraphobia that led Darwin to become a recluse and devote his life to the study of natural selection. Like Darwin and 13 million Americans, I also suffer from panic disorder and social anxiety but manage to lead a productive and happy life. I hope that this quiz has shown you that people with mental illness can be treated and contribute to society as Presidents, scientists, composers, writers, and Quizzyland editors!