Charles Darwin (1809–82) and his doctors

摘要

Two hundred years after his birth and 150 years after the publication of On the Origin of Species, Charles Darwin's (Figure 1) reputation is at a peak. Darwin's collections, observations, industry and theory of evolution by natural selection revealed the origin of man and his history. The achievement was all the more remarkable in view of Darwin's poor health. His personal opinion was that he suffered from an inherited constitutional weakness; his friends thought he was a hypochondriac and since his death numerous theories have been advanced to account for his illness: anxiety neurosis, arsenic poisoning, an allergy to pigeons, lactose intolerance, porphyria, Chagas' disease and Crohn's disease?1