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Tuesday, October 14, 2008

King Richard III Suffered from Cerebral Palsy?

Cerebral Palsy and King Richard III picWhile I was searching on the web for the "oldest person with cerebral palsy", I stumbled across a thread on YAHOO!Answers, where I found out that King Richard III was one of the persons who suffered from cerebral palsy.

There it mentioned:

'King Richard III was probably the oldest person historically to have the description of cerebral palsy documented.

In this case, the cerebral palsy symptom was spastic rigiditiy caused by lack of oxygen or damage from premature birth.

This was described by Shakespeare when he wrote, speaking as the then Duke of Gloucester, proclaming:

I that am curtailed of this fair proportion,
cheated of feature by this dissembling nature
Deformed, unfinished, sent before my time
Into this breathing world, scarce half made up
and that so lamely and unfashionable
That dogs bark at me as I halt by them….'

So now we know... But take note that there is still no accurate evidence on this claim that King Richard III really had cerebral palsy.