The New England Journal of Medicine
e-mail icon  FREE NEJM E-TOC    HOME   |   SUBSCRIBE   |   CURRENT ISSUE   |   PAST ISSUES   |   COLLECTIONS   |    Advanced Search
Sign in | Get NEJM's E-Mail Table of Contents — Free | Subscribe
 
Correspondence
PreviousPrevious
Volume 355:1935-1936 November 2, 2006 Number 18
NextNext

The Severe Gout of Emperor Charles V

Since this article has no abstract, we have provided an extract of the first 100 words of the full text and any section headings.

 Sign up for free e-toc
 

This Article
-Full Text
- PDF
-PDA Full Text
-Purchase this article

Tools and Services
-Add to Personal Archive
-Add to Citation Manager
-Notify a Friend
-E-mail When Cited
-E-mail When Letters Appear

More Information
-Related Article
by Ordi, J.
-PubMed Citation
To the Editor: Ordi et al. (Aug. 3 issue)1 confirm that the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V suffered from what physicians had long suspected was severe tophaceous gout.2 Lead poisoning may also have contributed to the decline and fall of this emperor.3 Saturnine gout results from exposure to lead through the addition of lead sugar (acetate) to wine to sweeten it and from the leaching of lead from glazes on amphora or from pewter drinking vessels.

Voracious consumption of wine (and lead) addled not only the Romans, but also the bibulous, podagrous English aristocrats of the 18th century,4 who were . . . [Full Text of this Article]



HOME  |  SUBSCRIBE  |  SEARCH  |  CURRENT ISSUE  |  PAST ISSUES  |  COLLECTIONS  |  PRIVACY  |  TERMS OF USE  |  HELP  |  beta.nejm.org

Comments and questions? Please contact us.

The New England Journal of Medicine is owned, published, and copyrighted © 2010 Massachusetts Medical Society. All rights reserved.