Charles Darwin’s (1809–1882) illness – the role of post-traumatic stress disorder

Abstract

During most of his adult life, in counterpoint to his fame in describing the theory of evolution, Charles Darwin was chronically ill. He consulted many doctors with only limited and temporary success. His symptoms were many and varied. His doctors favoured dyspepsia or suppressed gout as the diagnosis. The Water Cure was only effective initially. Many diagnoses have been proposed by physicians since then. Perhaps he suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), not instead of but as well as other physical problems. His symptoms match with criteria for PTSD. Traumatic episodes from his life are considered in this paper: his mother’s painful, sudden death from an acute abdominal event when he was eight; his reaction to seeing operations without anaesthetic; the deaths of three of his children, including his beloved daughter, Annie, aged ten; and being overwhelmed by his chronic, unrelenting symptoms. Trauma had not been conceptualised as a diagnosis in Darwin’s time. Rather, hysteria and, in war, irritable heart were names given to what is now called PTSD.