The madness of King George III: a psychiatric re-assessment

There is no author summary for this article yet. Authors can add summaries to their articles on ScienceOpen to make them more accessible to a non-specialist audience.

Abstract

This research, based on a study of King George III’s medical records and of contemporary diaries of his courtiers and equerries, further confirms the considerable doubt on the claim of Richard Hunter and Ida Macalpine that the King suffered from recurrent attacks of acute porphyria. The present study examines the above records from a psychiatric viewpoint, together with some additional reports, to re-assess the nature of the King’s maladies. It concludes that he suffered from recurrent mania (four episodes), with chronic mania and possibly a degree of fatuity during the last decade of his life. This is in agreement with previous reports that he suffered from manic-depressive psychosis.

Related collections

Most cited references 66

Record: found
Abstract: found
Article: not found

A developmental model for similarities and dissimilarities between schizophrenia and bipolar disorder.

Robin Murray, Pak Sham, Jim J. van Os … (2004)

Schizophrenia and mania have a number of symptoms and epidemiological characteristics in common, and both respond to dopamine blockade. Family, twin and molecular genetic studies suggest that the reason for these similarities may be that the two conditions share certain susceptibility genes. On the other hand, individuals with schizophrenia have more obvious brain structural and neuropsychological abnormalities than those with bipolar disorder; and pre-schizophrenic children are characterised by cognitive and neuromotor impairments, which are not shared by children who later develop bipolar disorder. Furthermore, the risk-increasing effect of obstetric complications has been demonstrated for schizophrenia but not for bipolar disorder. Perinatal complications such as hypoxia are known to result in smaller volume of the amygdala and hippocampus, which have been frequently reported to be reduced in schizophrenia; familial predisposition to schizophrenia is also associated with decreased volume of these structures. We suggest a model to explain the similarities and differences between the disorders and propose that, on a background of shared genetic predisposition to psychosis, schizophrenia, but not bipolar disorder, is subject to additional genes or early insults, which impair neurodevelopment, especially of the medial temporal lobe.

0 comments Cited 87 times – based on 0 reviews      Review now

Bookmark

Record: found
Abstract: not found
Book: not found

English population history from family reconstitution 1580–1837

E. A. Wrigley, R. S. Davies, J. Oeppen … (1997)

0 comments Cited 77 times – based on 0 reviews

Bookmark

Record: found
Abstract: found
Article: not found

Does the risk of developing dementia increase with the number of episodes in patients with depressive disorder and in patients with bipolar disorder?

Marianne Andersen, Lars Kessing (2004)

Several findings suggest that some patients with depressive or bipolar disorder may be at increased risk of developing dementia. The present study aimed to investigate whether the risk of developing dementia increases with the number of affective episodes in patients with depressive disorder and in patients with bipolar disorder. This was a case register study including all hospital admissions with primary affective disorder in Denmark during 1970-99. The effect of the number of prior episodes leading to admission on the rate of readmission with a diagnosis of dementia following the first discharge after 1985 was estimated. A total of 18,726 patients with depressive disorder and 4248 patients with bipolar disorder were included in the study. The rate of a diagnosis of dementia on readmission was significantly related to the number of prior affective episodes leading to admission. On average, the rate of dementia tended to increase 13% with every episode leading to admission for patients with depressive disorder and 6% with every episode leading to admission for patients with bipolar disorder, when adjusted for differences in age and sex. On average, the risk of dementia seems to increase with the number of episodes in depressive and bipolar affective disorders.