Retrospective diagnosis
A retrospective diagnosis (also retrodiagnosis or posthumous diagnosis) is the practice of identifying an illness after the death of the patient (sometimes a historical figure) using modern knowledge, methods and disease classifications.[1][2] Alternatively, it can be the more general attempt to give a modern name to an ancient and ill-defined scourge or plague.[3]
Historical research
Retrospective diagnosis is practised by medical historians, general historians and the media with varying degrees of scholarship. At its worst it may become "little more than a game, with ill-defined rules and little academic credibility".
The understanding of the history of illness can benefit from modern science. For example, knowledge of the insect vectors of malaria and yellow fever can be used to explain the changes in extent of those diseases caused by drainage or urbanisation in historical times.[3]
The practice of retrospective diagnosis has been applied in
Postmortem diagnosis
Post-mortem diagnosis is considered a research tool, and also a quality control practice
Examples
- Did Saint Paul have psychotic spectrum psychological symptoms?[13]
- Did Tutankhamun have Klippel–Feil syndrome?[14]
- Did Alfred the Great have Crohn's disease?[15]
- Did botulism cause the religious visions experienced by Julian of Norwich?[5]
- Was the hantavirus?[3]
- Was the Black Death due to bubonic plague?[5]
- Was "the great pox" syphilis or several venereal diseases?[3]
- Did King
- Were the conditions blamed on witches at the Salem witch trials caused by ergotism?[15]
- Did Napoleon die from stomach cancer, or was he poisoned with arsenic?[17]
- Could poliomyelitis?[18]
- Did Abraham Lincoln have Marfan syndrome?[19]
- Did Karl Marx have hidradenitis suppurativa?[20]
- Could Burke and Wills have died of thiaminase poisoning?[21]
- Did René Descartes have Exploding head syndrome?[22]
Retrospective diagnoses of autism
There have been many published speculative retrospective diagnoses of autism of historical figures. English scientist
See also
- Charles Darwin's illness
- List of people with epilepsy (includes notes on retrospective diagnosis and misdiagnosis of historical figures)
- Mental health of Jesus
- Paleopathology
- Samuel Johnson's health
References
- ^ "MedTerms: Retrodiagnosis". MedicineNet.com. 2004-01-12. Archived from the original on 2012-08-07. Retrieved 2008-08-08.
- ^ ISBN 978-0-7190-6734-1.
- ^ ISBN 978-0-7456-3224-7.
- ^ ISBN 978-0-7727-2029-0.
- ^ ISBN 978-0-86656-309-3.
- ^ Hayton, Darin. "Isaac Newton was Autistic, or Not". Darin Hayton, Historian of Science. Retrieved 7 May 2019.
- PMID 8541765.)
{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link - PMID 1340779.
- ^ S. Suryavanshi, J. D. Gomez, A. Mulla, J. Kalra, "Prevalence of diagnostic discordance: A retrospective analysis of autopsy findings and clinical diagnoses. Vol 30, No 4 (2007) Supplement – Royal College Abstracts, Official college of the canadian society for clinical investigation
- PMID 1933005.
- PMID 9448543.
- PMID 16648007.
- S2CID 207654711.
- PMID 12812942.
- ^ a b Edge, Joanne. "Diagnosing the past". Wellcome Collection. Retrieved 18 February 2019.
- PMID 5323262.
- .
- S2CID 39957366. Archived from the original(PDF) on 2008-03-07. Retrieved 2008-03-02.
- PMID 1773142.
- ^ Shuster, Sam (2008). "The nature and consequence of Karl Marx's skin disease". British Journal of Dermatology. Blackwell Publishing Ltd. 158 (1).
- S2CID 6835422.
- PMID 29609724.
- ^ Sacks, Oliver. Henry Cavendish: An early case of Asperger's syndrome? Archived 1 September 2007 at the Wayback Machine Neurological Foundation of New Zealand (Reprinted with permission from the American Neurological Association). Retrieved on 28 June 2007.
- S2CID 32979125.
- ^ a b Goode, Erica (9 October 2001). "CASES; A Disorder Far Beyond Eccentricity". The New York Times. Retrieved 26 November 2007.
- PMID 12519805.
Further reading
- Mackowiak, Philip A. (2007). Post-Mortem: Solving History's Great Medical Mysteries. The American College of Physicians. ISBN 978-1-930513-89-1.
- Historical Clinicopathological Conference