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Retrospective diagnosis

May 08, 2024

A retrospective diagnosis (also retrodiagnosis or posthumous diagnosis) is the practice of identifying an illness after the death of the patient (sometimes a historical figure) using modern knowledge, methods and disease classifications.[1][2] Alternatively, it can be the more general attempt to give a modern name to an ancient and ill-defined scourge or plague.[3]

Historical research edit

Retrospective diagnosis is practised by medical historians, general historians and the media with varying degrees of scholarship. At its worst it may become "little more than a game, with ill-defined rules and little academic credibility".[2] The process often requires "translating between linguistic and conceptual worlds separated by several centuries",[4] and assumes our modern disease concepts and categories are privileged.[4] Crude attempts at retrospective diagnosis fail to be sensitive to historical context, may treat historical and religious records as scientific evidence, or ascribe pathology to behaviours that require none.[5] Darin Hayton, a historian of science at Haverford College, claims that retrodiagnosing famous individuals with autism in the media is pointless, as historical accounts often contain incomplete information.[6]

The understanding of the history of illness can benefit from modern science. For example, knowledge of the insect vectors of malaria and yellow fever can be used to explain the changes in extent of those diseases caused by drainage or urbanisation in historical times.[3]

The practice of retrospective diagnosis has been applied in parody, where characters from fiction are "diagnosed". Squirrel Nutkin may have had Tourette syndrome[7] and Tiny Tim could have had distal renal tubular acidosis (type I).[8]

Postmortem diagnosis edit

Post-mortem diagnosis is considered a research tool, and also a quality control practice[9] and it allows to evaluate the performance of the clinical case definitions.[10] The term retrospective diagnosis is also sometimes used by a clinical pathologist to describe a medical diagnosis in a person made some time after the original illness has resolved or after death. In such cases, analysis of a physical specimen may yield a confident medical diagnosis. The search for the origin of AIDS has involved posthumous diagnosis of AIDS in people who died decades before the disease was first identified.[11] Another example is where analysis of preserved umbilical cord tissue enables the diagnosis of congenital cytomegalovirus infection in a patient who had later developed a central nervous system disorder.[12]

Examples edit

Retrospective diagnoses of autism edit

There have been many published speculative retrospective diagnoses of autism of historical figures. English scientist Henry Cavendish is believed by some to have been autistic. George Wilson, a notable chemist and physician, wrote a book about Cavendish entitled The Life of the Honourable Henry Cavendish (1851), which provides a detailed description that indicates Cavendish may have exhibited many classic signs of autism.[23][24][25][26] The practice of retrospectively diagnosing autism is controversial. Professor Fred Volkmar of Yale University is not convinced; he claims that "There is unfortunately a sort of cottage industry of finding that everyone has Asperger's."[25]

See also edit

References edit

  1. ^ . MedicineNet.com. 2004-01-12. Archived from the original on 2012-08-07. Retrieved 2008-08-08.
  2. ^ a b Elmer, Peter (2004). The healing arts: health, disease and society in Europe, 1500–1800. Manchester: Manchester University Press. pp. xv. ISBN 978-0-7190-6734-1.
  3. ^ a b c d Burnham, John C. (2005). What is medical history?. Cambridge, UK: Polity. pp. 76–78. ISBN 978-0-7456-3224-7.
  4. ^ a b Kevin P. Siena (2005). Sins of the flesh: responding to sexual disease in early modern Europe. Toronto: Centre for Reformation and Renaissance Studies. p. 12. ISBN 978-0-7727-2029-0.
  5. ^ a b c Getz, Faye M. Western Medieval Medicine in Greene, Rebecca (1988). History of medicine. New York, NY: Institute for Research in History. ISBN 978-0-86656-309-3.
  6. ^ Hayton, Darin. "Isaac Newton was Autistic, or Not". Darin Hayton, Historian of Science. Retrieved 7 May 2019.
  7. ^ Williams TM, Kim, Williams G (1995). "Excessive impertinence or a missed diagnosis?". BMJ. 311 (7021): 1700–1. doi:10.1136/bmj.311.7021.1700. PMC 2539093. PMID 8541765.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  8. ^ Lewis DW (December 1992). "What was wrong with Tiny Tim?". Am. J. Dis. Child. 146 (12): 1403–7. doi:10.1001/archpedi.1992.02160240013002. PMID 1340779.
  9. ^ S. Suryavanshi, J. D. Gomez, A. Mulla, J. Kalra, "Prevalence of diagnostic discordance: A retrospective analysis of autopsy findings and clinical diagnoses. Vol 30, No 4 (2007) Supplement – Royal College Abstracts, Official college of the canadian society for clinical investigation
  10. ^ Saracci R (1991). "Is necropsy a valid monitor of clinical diagnosis performance?". BMJ. 303 (6807): 898–900. doi:10.1136/bmj.303.6807.898. PMC 1671185. PMID 1933005.
  11. ^ Hooper, E. (1997). "Sailors and star-bursts, and the arrival of HIV". BMJ. 315 (7123): 1689–1691. doi:10.1136/bmj.315.7123.1689. PMC 2128008. PMID 9448543.
  12. ^ Ikeda S, Tsuru A, Moriuchi M, Moriuchi H (May 2006). "Retrospective diagnosis of congenital cytomegalovirus infection using umbilical cord". Pediatr. Neurol. 34 (5): 415–6. doi:10.1016/j.pediatrneurol.2005.10.006. PMID 16648007.
  13. ^ Murray ED.; Cunningham MG; Price BH. (2012). "The role of psychotic disorders in religious history considered". The Journal of Neuropsychiatry and Clinical Neurosciences. 24 (4): 410–26. doi:10.1176/appi.neuropsych.11090214. PMID 23224447. S2CID 207654711.
  14. ^ Boyer RS, Rodin EA, Grey TC, Connolly RC (2003). "The skull and cervical spine radiographs of Tutankhamen: a critical appraisal". AJNR Am J Neuroradiol. 24 (6): 1142–7. PMC 8149017. PMID 12812942.
  15. ^ a b Edge, Joanne. "Diagnosing the past". Wellcome Collection. Retrieved 18 February 2019.
  16. ^ Macalpine I, Hunter R (January 1966). "The "insanity" of King George 3d: a classic case of porphyria". Br Med J. 1 (5479): 65–71. doi:10.1136/bmj.1.5479.65. PMC 1843211. PMID 5323262.
  17. ^ Hindmarch, J. Thomas; Savory, John (2008). "The Death of Napoleon, Cancer or Arsenic?" (PDF). Clinical Chemistry. 54 (12): 2092–3. doi:10.1373/clinchem.2008.117358.
  18. ^ Goldman AS, Schmalstieg EJ, Freeman DH, Goldman DA, Schmalstieg FC (2003). (PDF). J Med Biogr. 11 (4): 232–40. CiteSeerX 10.1.1.691.2120. doi:10.1177/096777200301100412. PMID 14562158. S2CID 39957366. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2008-03-07. Retrieved 2008-03-02.
  19. ^ Young I (December 1991). "Understanding Marfan's syndrome". BMJ. 303 (6815): 1414–5. doi:10.1136/bmj.303.6815.1414. PMC 1671667. PMID 1773142.
  20. ^ Shuster, Sam (2008). "The nature and consequence of Karl Marx's skin disease". British Journal of Dermatology. Blackwell Publishing Ltd. 158 (1).
  21. ^ Earl JW, McCleary BV (April 1994). "Mystery of the poisoned expedition". Nature. 368 (6473): 683–4. Bibcode:1994Natur.368..683E. doi:10.1038/368683a0. PMID 8152477. S2CID 6835422.
  22. ^ Otaiku AI (April 2018). "Did René Descartes Have Exploding Head Syndrome?". Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine. 14 (4): 675–8. doi:10.5664/jcsm.7068. PMC 5886445. PMID 29609724.
  23. ^ Sacks, Oliver. Henry Cavendish: An early case of Asperger's syndrome? 1 September 2007 at the Wayback Machine Neurological Foundation of New Zealand (Reprinted with permission from the American Neurological Association). Retrieved on 28 June 2007.
  24. ^ Sacks O (2001). "Henry Cavendish: an early case of Asperger's syndrome?". Neurology. 57 (7): 1347. doi:10.1212/wnl.57.7.1347. PMID 11591871. S2CID 32979125.
  25. ^ a b Goode, Erica (9 October 2001). "CASES; A Disorder Far Beyond Eccentricity". The New York Times. Retrieved 26 November 2007.
  26. ^ James I (2003). "Singular scientists". J R Soc Med. 96 (1): 36–9. doi:10.1177/014107680309600112. PMC 539373. PMID 12519805.

Further reading edit

  • Mackowiak, Philip A. (2007). Post-Mortem: Solving History's Great Medical Mysteries. The American College of Physicians. ISBN 978-1-930513-89-1.
  • Historical Clinicopathological Conference

May 08, 2024
retrospective, diagnosis, retrospective, diagnosis, also, retrodiagnosis, posthumous, diagnosis, practice, identifying, illness, after, death, patient, sometimes, historical, figure, using, modern, knowledge, methods, disease, classifications, alternatively, m. A retrospective diagnosis also retrodiagnosis or posthumous diagnosis is the practice of identifying an illness after the death of the patient sometimes a historical figure using modern knowledge methods and disease classifications 1 2 Alternatively it can be the more general attempt to give a modern name to an ancient and ill defined scourge or plague 3 Contents 1 Historical research 2 Postmortem diagnosis 3 Examples 4 Retrospective diagnoses of autism 5 See also 6 References 7 Further readingHistorical research editRetrospective diagnosis is practised by medical historians general historians and the media with varying degrees of scholarship At its worst it may become little more than a game with ill defined rules and little academic credibility 2 The process often requires translating between linguistic and conceptual worlds separated by several centuries 4 and assumes our modern disease concepts and categories are privileged 4 Crude attempts at retrospective diagnosis fail to be sensitive to historical context may treat historical and religious records as scientific evidence or ascribe pathology to behaviours that require none 5 Darin Hayton a historian of science at Haverford College claims that retrodiagnosing famous individuals with autism in the media is pointless as historical accounts often contain incomplete information 6 The understanding of the history of illness can benefit from modern science For example knowledge of the insect vectors of malaria and yellow fever can be used to explain the changes in extent of those diseases caused by drainage or urbanisation in historical times 3 The practice of retrospective diagnosis has been applied in parody where characters from fiction are diagnosed Squirrel Nutkin may have had Tourette syndrome 7 and Tiny Tim could have had distal renal tubular acidosis type I 8 Postmortem diagnosis editPost mortem diagnosis is considered a research tool and also a quality control practice 9 and it allows to evaluate the performance of the clinical case definitions 10 The term retrospective diagnosis is also sometimes used by a clinical pathologist to describe a medical diagnosis in a person made some time after the original illness has resolved or after death In such cases analysis of a physical specimen may yield a confident medical diagnosis The search for the origin of AIDS has involved posthumous diagnosis of AIDS in people who died decades before the disease was first identified 11 Another example is where analysis of preserved umbilical cord tissue enables the diagnosis of congenital cytomegalovirus infection in a patient who had later developed a central nervous system disorder 12 Examples editDid Abraham Moses Jesus or Saint Paul have psychotic spectrum psychological symptoms 13 Did Tutankhamun have Klippel Feil syndrome 14 Did Alfred the Great have Crohn s disease 15 Did botulism cause the religious visions experienced by Julian of Norwich 5 Was the English sweat caused by hantavirus 3 Was the Black Death due to bubonic plague 5 Was the great pox syphilis or several venereal diseases 3 Did King George III of the United Kingdom exhibit the classic symptoms of porphyria 16 Were the conditions blamed on witches at the Salem witch trials caused by ergotism 15 Did Napoleon die from stomach cancer or was he poisoned with arsenic 17 Could Franklin D Roosevelt s paralytic illness have been Guillain Barre syndrome rather than poliomyelitis 18 Did Abraham Lincoln have Marfan syndrome 19 Did Karl Marx have hidradenitis suppurativa 20 Could Burke and Wills have died of thiaminase poisoning 21 Did Rene Descartes have Exploding head syndrome 22 Retrospective diagnoses of autism editThere have been many published speculative retrospective diagnoses of autism of historical figures English scientist Henry Cavendish is believed by some to have been autistic George Wilson a notable chemist and physician wrote a book about Cavendish entitled The Life of the Honourable Henry Cavendish 1851 which provides a detailed description that indicates Cavendish may have exhibited many classic signs of autism 23 24 25 26 The practice of retrospectively diagnosing autism is controversial Professor Fred Volkmar of Yale University is not convinced he claims that There is unfortunately a sort of cottage industry of finding that everyone has Asperger s 25 See also editCharles Darwin s illness List of people with epilepsy includes notes on retrospective diagnosis and misdiagnosis of historical figures Mental health of Jesus Paleopathology Samuel Johnson s healthReferences edit MedTerms Retrodiagnosis MedicineNet com 2004 01 12 Archived from the original on 2012 08 07 Retrieved 2008 08 08 a b Elmer Peter 2004 The healing arts health disease and society in Europe 1500 1800 Manchester Manchester University Press pp xv ISBN 978 0 7190 6734 1 a b c d Burnham John C 2005 What is medical history Cambridge UK Polity pp 76 78 ISBN 978 0 7456 3224 7 a b Kevin P Siena 2005 Sins of the flesh responding to sexual disease in early modern Europe Toronto Centre for Reformation and Renaissance Studies p 12 ISBN 978 0 7727 2029 0 a b c Getz Faye M Western Medieval Medicine in Greene Rebecca 1988 History of medicine New York NY Institute for Research in History ISBN 978 0 86656 309 3 Hayton Darin Isaac Newton was Autistic or Not Darin Hayton Historian of Science Retrieved 7 May 2019 Williams TM Kim Williams G 1995 Excessive impertinence or a missed diagnosis BMJ 311 7021 1700 1 doi 10 1136 bmj 311 7021 1700 PMC 2539093 PMID 8541765 a href Template Cite journal html title Template Cite journal cite journal a CS1 maint multiple names authors list link Lewis DW December 1992 What was wrong with Tiny Tim Am J Dis Child 146 12 1403 7 doi 10 1001 archpedi 1992 02160240013002 PMID 1340779 S Suryavanshi J D Gomez A Mulla J Kalra Prevalence of diagnostic discordance A retrospective analysis of autopsy findings and clinical diagnoses Vol 30 No 4 2007 Supplement Royal College Abstracts Official college of the canadian society for clinical investigation Saracci R 1991 Is necropsy a valid monitor of clinical diagnosis performance BMJ 303 6807 898 900 doi 10 1136 bmj 303 6807 898 PMC 1671185 PMID 1933005 Hooper E 1997 Sailors and star bursts and the arrival of HIV BMJ 315 7123 1689 1691 doi 10 1136 bmj 315 7123 1689 PMC 2128008 PMID 9448543 Ikeda S Tsuru A Moriuchi M Moriuchi H May 2006 Retrospective diagnosis of congenital cytomegalovirus infection using umbilical cord Pediatr Neurol 34 5 415 6 doi 10 1016 j pediatrneurol 2005 10 006 PMID 16648007 Murray ED Cunningham MG Price BH 2012 The role of psychotic disorders in religious history considered The Journal of Neuropsychiatry and Clinical Neurosciences 24 4 410 26 doi 10 1176 appi neuropsych 11090214 PMID 23224447 S2CID 207654711 Boyer RS Rodin EA Grey TC Connolly RC 2003 The skull and cervical spine radiographs of Tutankhamen a critical appraisal AJNR Am J Neuroradiol 24 6 1142 7 PMC 8149017 PMID 12812942 a b Edge Joanne Diagnosing the past Wellcome Collection Retrieved 18 February 2019 Macalpine I Hunter R January 1966 The insanity of King George 3d a classic case of porphyria Br Med J 1 5479 65 71 doi 10 1136 bmj 1 5479 65 PMC 1843211 PMID 5323262 Hindmarch J Thomas Savory John 2008 The Death of Napoleon Cancer or Arsenic PDF Clinical Chemistry 54 12 2092 3 doi 10 1373 clinchem 2008 117358 Goldman AS Schmalstieg EJ Freeman DH Goldman DA Schmalstieg FC 2003 What was the cause of Franklin Delano Roosevelt s paralytic illness PDF J Med Biogr 11 4 232 40 CiteSeerX 10 1 1 691 2120 doi 10 1177 096777200301100412 PMID 14562158 S2CID 39957366 Archived from the original PDF on 2008 03 07 Retrieved 2008 03 02 Young I December 1991 Understanding Marfan s syndrome BMJ 303 6815 1414 5 doi 10 1136 bmj 303 6815 1414 PMC 1671667 PMID 1773142 Shuster Sam 2008 The nature and consequence of Karl Marx s skin disease British Journal of Dermatology Blackwell Publishing Ltd 158 1 Earl JW McCleary BV April 1994 Mystery of the poisoned expedition Nature 368 6473 683 4 Bibcode 1994Natur 368 683E doi 10 1038 368683a0 PMID 8152477 S2CID 6835422 Otaiku AI April 2018 Did Rene Descartes Have Exploding Head Syndrome Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine 14 4 675 8 doi 10 5664 jcsm 7068 PMC 5886445 PMID 29609724 Sacks Oliver Henry Cavendish An early case of Asperger s syndrome Archived 1 September 2007 at the Wayback Machine Neurological Foundation of New Zealand Reprinted with permission from the American Neurological Association Retrieved on 28 June 2007 Sacks O 2001 Henry Cavendish an early case of Asperger s syndrome Neurology 57 7 1347 doi 10 1212 wnl 57 7 1347 PMID 11591871 S2CID 32979125 a b Goode Erica 9 October 2001 CASES A Disorder Far Beyond Eccentricity The New York Times Retrieved 26 November 2007 James I 2003 Singular scientists J R Soc Med 96 1 36 9 doi 10 1177 014107680309600112 PMC 539373 PMID 12519805 Further reading editMackowiak Philip A 2007 Post Mortem Solving History s Great Medical Mysteries The American College of Physicians ISBN 978 1 930513 89 1 Historical Clinicopathological Conference Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title Retrospective diagnosis amp oldid 1220798833 Retrospective diagnoses of autism, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,

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