If you think medical mistakes are common now, imagine trying to make a diagnosis of someone two hundred years dead!

That is the interesting task that confronts anyone who wishes to know what happened to George III, and why this king -- never very bright -- ended up restrained and with his son taking over his duties.

That George suffered some sort of mental impairment is clear. Unfortunately, as with most royal maladies, the records of what he actually suffered are far less clear. Was he entirely mad, or was he just a little infirm? Did it really takes as long for him to recover as the doctors claimed, or were they just trying to maintain their positions? And, whatever the doctors were up to, did their treatments help in any way -- or, more likely, did they make things worse?

This book is a serious attempt to add up the data about George III and reach a diagnosis. The authors conclude that he suffered from porphyria -- a genetic disease which would account for some of George's symptoms.

Some. Not all. The porphyria hypothesis did become quite popular in the aftermath of this meticulously documented (but not very organized) book. Perhaps it was because the data was so overwhelming that no one really managed to sort out how much of it was relevant and how much just an attempt to bulk out the book.

In fact George's symptoms are not a particularly close fit for porphyria. What's more, the authors attempt to trace the disease far back among his ancestors -- but any genetic trail that long is likely to have grown cold; the genes will have split up. Recent scholars have proposed other possible solutions to the riddle of George III. And some of those solutions may be better than the porphyria hypothesis.

This is still an important book. It remains the best argument for one particular explanation of George III's problems. But it is merely an argument. It is not the final answer. ( )

This book goes into far more detail than a mere pleb, such as myself, can hope to comprehend. The most interesting point and, the one that is still true today, is the certitude of the medical profession whilst talking 'round objects'.

His majesty's illness was caused by his getting his legs wet whilst out walking through grass soaked by the morning dew. He failed to change his stockings after the walk, treatment for the ensuing aches caused the trouble to move up to his stomach from whence, it naturally continued up to his head. Nowadays, the average chap in the street (me) knows this to be nonsense but, the determination of the best physicians of the day to assert that this was the cause and that the cure was a mixture of bleeding and the use of a strait-waistcoat and the strapping of the patient to his bed. When being thus tethered caused his blood pressure to rise, this was seen as proof of his malady!
Undoubtedly, medicine has come a long way over the last two hundred years and, were a Monarch, or a peasant to suffer a similar ailment today, the treatment would be far more humane and probably more effective. Where I am concerned is that the unwillingness to say, "We do not know." is still as prevalent.