I have always been fascinated by the health issues affecting great men and women throughout the ages, not only because I am a doctor myself, but oftentimes illnesses can dominate someone's life and alter the course of events. For example, how much did Beethoven's deafness affect his music ? It can be argued that he was able to break the mold of the classical tradition and bring in the Romantic period because he could no longer hear and had to compose in his head, thus freeing him from the restrictions of the physical world. Others could achieve greatness due to sheer quirks of their birth (it can be argued that great athletes are born, not created through training, especially for endurance sports) or other factors to do with their health. Somebody speculated that Monet painted the way he did later in life due to his failing eyesight, and was not a deliberate attempt to achieve an "impressionistic" effect. Renoir's rheumatoid arthritis probably also affected the way he painted.
Prof. Mackowiak did a great job collecting historical evidence to back up his conjectures when he attempted to diagnose the health problems affecting these illustrious men and women. He gave riveting accounts of the suffering they went through, and very detailed analyses of the signs and symptoms culminating in the most probable diagnosis. The author had a gift for story-telling, but he was equally at home in explaining complex medical and scientific matters in ways that lay people can easily understand.
For me, this book (and the later volume) was a great review of areas of general medicine that I no longer involve with day-to-day, and would otherwise have little reason to read up on (especially in the form of dry academic review papers or book chapters).
It is a must-read for students of medicine and history buffs.
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