Did Darwin have Panic Disorder?
Did Darwin have Panic Disorder?
Curt Suplee, Washington Post
Charles Darwin might never have revolutionized biology with his theory of
evolution if he had not suffered from chronic mental illness that turned
him into a scholarly recluse, a provocative new study concludes.
Before he was out of his twenties, Darwin succumbed to a mysterious,
debilitating condition that various authorities attributed over the years
to bad nerves, tropical disease, arsenic poisoning, intellectual
exhaustion, dyspepsia, "suppressed gout" or other complaints.
That condition, two physicians argue in this week's issue of the "Journal
of the Amrican Medical Association," was most likely a form of panic
disorder aggravated by agoraphobia.
The combination kept the celebrated naturalist removed from society and
probably forced him to focus on the epochal concept of natural selection,
according to Thomas Barloon and Russell Noyes of the University of Iowa
College of Medicine.
"Had it not been for this illness," they write, "his theory of evolution
might not have become the all-consuming passion that produced "On the
Origin of Species."
Panic disorder, which affects an estimated 13 million Americans, manifests
itself in unexpected attacks of extreme anxiety, with symptoms including
rapid heartbeat, shortness of breath, trembling, sweating, nausea and
dizziness.
Some victims feel they are losing their minds or are about to die. Many
become so obsessively worried about subsequent attacks that they make
major
changes in their behaviours, shunning whatever situation may have prompted
the panic.
In a journal, Darwin (1809 - 1882) described his malady as a "sensation of
fear . . . accompanied by troubled beating of the heart, sweat, trembling
of muscles." The onset of panic disorder usually occurs between late
adolescence and the mid-thirties. Darwin was 27 when his illness first
became severe.
He had been a gregarious collegian, intrepid traveler and vigorous
outdoorsman. But by 1837 - only a year after his return to England after
a
five-year voyage to South America and the Pacific aboard "HMS Beagle" - he
began to complain of an "uncomfortable palpitation of the heart,"
according
to the 1991 biography by Adrian Desmond and James Moore. The symptoms
arose shortly after he started a secret notebook that, 22 years later,
would become his book-length elaboration of the theory of evolution.
Curt Suplee, Washington Post
Charles Darwin might never have revolutionized biology with his theory of
evolution if he had not suffered from chronic mental illness that turned
him into a scholarly recluse, a provocative new study concludes.
Before he was out of his twenties, Darwin succumbed to a mysterious,
debilitating condition that various authorities attributed over the years
to bad nerves, tropical disease, arsenic poisoning, intellectual
exhaustion, dyspepsia, "suppressed gout" or other complaints.
That condition, two physicians argue in this week's issue of the "Journal
of the Amrican Medical Association," was most likely a form of panic
disorder aggravated by agoraphobia.
The combination kept the celebrated naturalist removed from society and
probably forced him to focus on the epochal concept of natural selection,
according to Thomas Barloon and Russell Noyes of the University of Iowa
College of Medicine.
"Had it not been for this illness," they write, "his theory of evolution
might not have become the all-consuming passion that produced "On the
Origin of Species."
Panic disorder, which affects an estimated 13 million Americans, manifests
itself in unexpected attacks of extreme anxiety, with symptoms including
rapid heartbeat, shortness of breath, trembling, sweating, nausea and
dizziness.
Some victims feel they are losing their minds or are about to die. Many
become so obsessively worried about subsequent attacks that they make
major
changes in their behaviours, shunning whatever situation may have prompted
the panic.
In a journal, Darwin (1809 - 1882) described his malady as a "sensation of
fear . . . accompanied by troubled beating of the heart, sweat, trembling
of muscles." The onset of panic disorder usually occurs between late
adolescence and the mid-thirties. Darwin was 27 when his illness first
became severe.
He had been a gregarious collegian, intrepid traveler and vigorous
outdoorsman. But by 1837 - only a year after his return to England after
a
five-year voyage to South America and the Pacific aboard "HMS Beagle" - he
began to complain of an "uncomfortable palpitation of the heart,"
according
to the 1991 biography by Adrian Desmond and James Moore. The symptoms
arose shortly after he started a secret notebook that, 22 years later,
would become his book-length elaboration of the theory of evolution.