The characters depicted in the self-portrait of the elderly Leonardo

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Francisco Goya: Susak syndrome, syphilis or Kogan syndrome


One of the greatest portrait painters of our time fell ill in the autumn of 1792, when he was forty-six. What contemporary doctors identified as colic lasted for several weeks. In February 1793, Goya's health deteriorated seriously: the artist managed to survive, but he lost his hearing for life. Until then, his health had been strong, with the exception of a brief unspecified illness suffered at the age of thirty-two and minor injuries he received when his carriage overturned.

Rona Erzano of the University of Maryland in Baltimore (USA) and her colleagues, speaking at the annual Historical Clinicopathological Conference in 2017, argue that the hearing loss could have been caused by syphilis or an autoimmune disease such as Susak syndrome or Cogan syndrome. It has previously been suggested that the artist could have suffered a series of strokes, a brain injury, a severe inflammation of the inner ear known as Meniere's disease, or lead poisoning. As the conference participants stated, none of these hypotheses are correct.

Susak syndrome is a very rare autoimmune disease. When it develops, the immune system attacks nerve cells in certain parts of the brain, the arteries that feed them, and the receptors in the cochlea that convert acoustic vibrations into nerve impulses. This leads to gradual hearing loss and vision impairment, migraine attacks, and the development of jamaica number data mental disorders. According to scientists, the symptoms of the disease coincide with what his contemporaries wrote about Goya. Another variant of the autoimmune disease, Kogan syndrome, develops in people aged 16 to 47 and is accompanied by damage to vision and the inner ear. With syphilis, the patient can also lose hearing, but this happens quite rarely. Scientists note that if Francisco Goya had lived in the 21st century, his hearing could have been saved with the help of a cochlear implant.

Sultan Saladin: Typhoid Fever


The Sultan of Syria and Egypt, Saladin (1137-1193), was famous for his fight against the Crusaders. He recaptured part of Palestine, including Jerusalem, from the knights, and captured the king of Jerusalem. Europeans respected Saladin for his courage and respect for his opponent. He died at the age of fifty-six after a two-week illness. This happened after the end of the Third Crusade: the sultan began to complain of weakness, loss of appetite, fatigue, and digestive problems. He developed a fever and stopped wearing a warm tunic, although the weather was cold. At first, the fever was suppressed, but on the fourth day he became "much worse, and the fluids of his body began to slow down their flow." Saladin began to suffer severe headaches. He lost his appetite and soon became so weak that he could not hold a sheet of paper in his hands. On the fourteenth day of his illness, he died. As suggested by Stephen J. Gluckman, MD, a professor of medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, and Thomas Asbridge, Ph.D., a specialist in the history of the Crusades, of the University of London, Saladin may have died of typhoid fever. This disease is characterized by fever and headache, which were observed in the sultan. Typhoid fever is caused by the bacterium Salmonella enterica: the infection is transmitted through water and food. It was widespread in southern Europe and the Middle East in the Middle Ages.