# Matching diseases
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/matching-diseases/90392
**Category:** Cecil's Columns/Staff Reports
**Created:** [October 29, 2001, 11:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/matching-diseases/90392 "2001-10-29T23:48:18Z")
**Posts on this page:** 6
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Lance\_the\_Advancer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lance_the_Advancer)
#### Post date: [October 29, 2001, 11:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/matching-diseases/90392/1 "2001-10-29T23:48:18Z")
[http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a990507.html](http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a990507.html)
Ok Cecil says this:
“The practice of trying to match diseases with well-known figures in history or folklore has a long and not entirely reputable history.”
What are some examples of some other diseases that have been associated with figures in folklore and history?
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### Author:  [@Arnold\_Winkelried](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Arnold_Winkelried)
#### Post date: [October 30, 2001, 12:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/matching-diseases/90392/2 "2001-10-30T00:33:51Z")
Abraham Lincoln and Marfan syndrome?
Mona Lisa and facial palsy?
Vincent Van Gogh and epilepsia?
English King George III and mental illness?
(just examples from memory, I don’t guarantee 100% accuracy.)
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### Author:  [@Arnold\_Winkelried](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Arnold_Winkelried)
#### Post date: [October 30, 2001, 12:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/matching-diseases/90392/3 "2001-10-30T00:37:03Z")
P.S. I forgot Napoleon’s ulcer. And Britney Spears’ alleged breast implants.
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### Author:  [@bibliophage](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bibliophage)
#### Post date: [October 30, 2001, 2:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/matching-diseases/90392/4 "2001-10-30T02:31:57Z")
Edgar Allan Poe supposedly dying of rabies. I started a thread in GQ about it a while back: [http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=47100](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=47100)
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### Author:  [@dtilque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dtilque)
#### Post date: [October 31, 2001, 4:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/matching-diseases/90392/5 "2001-10-31T04:28:38Z")
That was George III and porphyria, which another current thread is discussing.
This isn’t a disease, but there’s a guy who wants to exhume Meriwether Lewis to prove he was murdered rather than committed suicide. Lewis was probably a manic-depressive.
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### Author:  [@bibliophage](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bibliophage)
#### Post date: [October 31, 2001, 6:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/matching-diseases/90392/6 "2001-10-31T06:34:14Z")
Speaking of digging people up . . .
They exhumed President Zachary Taylor’s body in 1991 to see if he had been poisoned. He hadn’t been.