Revolutionary Robespierre may have had rare immune disease

By Kate Kelland LONDON (Reuters) - He was riddled with jaundice, pock-marked, bloody and twitchy. A new scientific analysis shows French revolutionary Maximilien de Robespierre was probably suffering from an organ-destroying immune disorder called sarcoidosis when he was executed by guillotine in 1794. After reconstruction and examination of the death mask of the leader of the "reign of terror", forensic scientists Philippe Charlier and Philippe Froesch gave a retrospective diagnosis of the disease in which the body starts to attack its own tissues and organs. "Several clinical signs were described by contemporary witnesses," the scientists wrote in The Lancet medical journal.



via Health News Headlines - Yahoo News http://news.yahoo.com/revolutionary-robespierre-may-had-rare-immune-disease-000858767.html