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Feb 4, 2019 · Alexander the Great may have been killed by Guillain-Barré syndrome, a rare neurological condition in which a person's own immune system attacks them, says one medical researchers.
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“His death may be the most famous case of pseudothanatos, or false diagnosis of death, ever recorded.”
When Alexander the Great died in Babylon in 323 B.C., his body didn’t begin to show signs of decomposition for a full six days, according to historical accounts.
To the ancient Greeks, this confirmed what they all thought about the young Macedonian king, and what Alexander believed about himself—that he was not an ordinary man, but a god.
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But in one theory, a scholar and practicing clinician suggests that Alexander may have suffered from the neurological disorder Guillain-Barré Syndrome (GBS), which caused his death. She also argues that people might not have noticed any immediate signs of decomposition on the body for one simple reason—because Alexander wasn’t dead yet.
As Dr. Katherine Hall, a senior lecturer at the Dunedin School of Medicine at the University of Otago, New Zealand, wrote in a 2018 article published in The Ancient History Bulletin, most other theories of what killed Alexander have focused on the agonizing fever and abdominal pain he suffered in the days before he died.
In fact, she points out, he was also known to have developed a “progressive, symmetrical, ascending paralysis” during his illness. And though he was very sick, he remained compos mentis (fully in control of his mental faculties) until just before his death.
Hall argues that GBS, a rare but serious autoimmune disorder in which the immune system attacks healthy cells in the nervous system, can explain this combination of symptoms better than the other theories advanced for Alexander’s death. She believes he may have contracted the disorder from an infection of Campylobacter pylori, a common bacterium at the time. According to Hall, Alexander likely got a variant of GBS that produced paralysis without causing confusion or unconsciousness.
The death of Alexander the Great at Babylon in 323 B.C.
While historians have long speculated over what exactly killed Alexander, Hall suggests he might not even have died when people thought he did.
She argues that the increasing paralysis Alexander suffered, as well as the fact that his body needed less oxygen as it shut down, would have meant that his breathing was less visible. Because in ancient times, doctors relied on the presence or absence of breath, rather than a pulse, to determine whether a patient was alive or dead, Hall believes Alexander might have been falsely declared dead before he actually died.
"I wanted to stimulate new debate and discussion and possibly rewrite the history books by arguing Alexander's real death was six days later than previously accepted,” Hall said in a statement from the University of Otago. “His death may be the most famous case of pseudothanatos, or false diagnosis of death, ever recorded.”
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Searches related to can autoimmune disease explain alexander's death penalty
Unreliable sources and the unavailability of Alexander’s body for autopsy make reaching a definitive diagnosis an impossible task; however, based on existing information, we presume that he most probably died of a neurological cause due to acute necrotizing pancreatitis and encephalopathy secondary to peritonitis.
- Shri K Mishra, Adam Mengestab, Shaweta Khosa
- Cureus. 2022 Apr; 14(4): e23925.
- 10.7759/cureus.23925
- 2022/04
May 13, 2024 · Alexander the Great died at the age of 32 after being paralysed by Guillain-Barre syndrome, an acute autoimmune condition. Science Edited by Amit Chaturvedi Updated: May 13, 2024 1:52 pm IST....
www.sciencedaily.com · releases · 2019New explanation for Alexander the Great's death - ScienceDaily
Jan 22, 2019 · Dr Hall believes a diagnosis of GBS, contracted from a Campylobacter pylori infection (common at the time and a frequent cause for GBS), stands the test of scholarly rigour, from both Classical and...
May 29, 2023 · Alexander the Great’s death was, most probably, caused by an illness. There are still many questions among scholars and historians about Alexander’s death. Since the accounts from that time are not very clear, people cannot come to a conclusive diagnosis.
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Feb 13, 2019 · In an article published in The Ancient History Bulletin, Dr Katherine Hall, a Senior Lecturer at the Dunedin School of Medicine and practising clinician, says previous theories around his death in 323BC have not been satisfactory as they have not explained the entire event.
