Handel's Ill Health: Documents and Diagnoses

Abstract

The full range of George Frideric Handel's medical problems has not been adequately considered despite numerous specialist articles. Contemporary evidence used by previous writers is combined with new evidence from the correspondence of James Harris and other sources in a lengthy table arranged chronologically. The subsequent discussion focuses on four areas: obesity, binge-eating disorder, paralysis, and blindness. The likelihood that lead poisoning, probably from excessive consumption of wine and rich foods, caused the paralysis and blindness is explored in depth. The testing of bone or hair fragments is the only means of establishing a sure diagnosis, and that would require exhumation.