Teens Like It Big is now live. This is our first ever teen site we have launched, and teen traffic holders are converting amazing with this site. We have added the added value of monstercock to the site, to make sure it also converts general traffic. This site is a winner.King George III: Mad or misunderstood?
King George's wigs were laden with arsenic
Last year a remarkable exhibit came to light. Hidden in the vaults of a London museum was a scrap of paper containing a few strands of hair.
The paper was crudely fashioned into an envelope but the words on it immediately caused a stir: "Hair of His Late Majesty, King George 3rd."
For Professor Martin Warren, it was the clue that would help him finally solve the mystery of King George's illness. His investigation is featured in a BBC documentary, Medical Mysteries.
"King George is largely remembered for those periods when he lost his mind. But it's been difficult to explain these attacks, so I was keen to analyse this hair sample," said Professor Warren.
When the hair was tested by the Harwell International Business Centre for Science & Technology in Didcot, Oxfordshire, the results were surprising.
The king's hair was laden with arsenic. It contained over 300 times the toxic level.
"This level is way above anything we were expecting - it's taken us completely by surprise."
More detective work
Far from being an answer, this remarkable finding was just the start of Warren's detective work.
In King George's time, his bizarre behaviour and wild outbursts were treated as insanity.
He was bound in a straitjacket and chained to a chair to control his ravings. King George was officially mad.
It wasn't until the 1970s that a new and controversial diagnosis was made.
Two psychiatrists - Ida MacAlpine and her son Richard Hunter - revisited the king's medical records and noticed a key symptom; dark red urine - a classic and unmistakable sign of a rare blood disorder called porphyria.
Porphyria can be a devastating disease. In the acute form, it can cause severe abdominal pain, cramps, and even seizure-like epileptic fits.
Misdiagnosed
It is frequently misdiagnosed, and even in modern times, some sufferers have been thought to be mentally ill.
No comments:
Post a Comment