Darwin's Health in Relation to His Voyage to South America

Abstract

Darwin was ill for 50 years, and it has been suggested that he suffered from Chagas's disease or South American trypanosomiasis contracted during his voyage in H.M.S. Beagle. He certainly was bitten by the vector of Chagas's disease, but there is no certainty that they were infected. The infection can cause myocardial damage and heart failure, megacolon and megaoesophagus, but it is often asymptomatic. Evidence from Darwin's writings and those of some of his relatives indicates that his symptoms were of palpitations, lassitude, headaches, tremulousness, sleeplessness, and flatulence brought on by meeting people and by emotionally charged situations. His exercise tolerance remained good until shortly before his death at the age of 73. Though attended by some of the best clinical observers of the day no signs of disease were detected. Persons may die with asymptomatic Chagas's disease, but it is considered to be beyond credibility that severe incapacity could have been produced by it for 40-50 years without the development of physical signs. There is evidence that several of Darwin's children who were not exposed to infection with Chagas's disease nevertheless had a disease similar to their father's. The course of the illness was unlike that of an organic disorder causing cardiac insufficiency in that the symptoms improved during the last decade of his life. The features of the illness strongly suggest a diagnosis of a functional disorder. © 1965, British Medical Journal Publishing Group. All rights reserved.