Yeah, there are very few conditions stress can't make *worse*, because it negatively impacts your immune system, affects your life choices (like seeking medical treatment), and just generally undermines your mental heath.
But porphyria can attack the nervous system, so given the intracranial bleeding they found, it's possible AW would have died anyway.
Wikipedia is telling me that porphyria comes in both acute and chronic forms, and that even today the acute attacks can be fatal, so maybe AW was unlucky enough to get an acute attack that was fatal back then even if it wouldn't have been now.
did FW die of it? I know Fritz must not have or I would have known by now :)
Judging by their symptoms, Fritz, FW, and Wilhelmine seem to have died of heart failure, aka dropsy, aka water retention because the circulatory system was slowly giving out. Probably in conjunction with other things, although in Fritz's case it may merely have been that he was 74 and had been imbibing tobacco by the metric ton for most of his life. I'm more surprised he lasted as long as he did!
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Re: No Pity for the Sons readthrough - post Küstrin
Date: 2020-09-13 11:06 pm (UTC)But porphyria can attack the nervous system, so given the intracranial bleeding they found, it's possible AW would have died anyway.
Wikipedia is telling me that porphyria comes in both acute and chronic forms, and that even today the acute attacks can be fatal, so maybe AW was unlucky enough to get an acute attack that was fatal back then even if it wouldn't have been now.
did FW die of it? I know Fritz must not have or I would have known by now :)
Judging by their symptoms, Fritz, FW, and Wilhelmine seem to have died of heart failure, aka dropsy, aka water retention because the circulatory system was slowly giving out. Probably in conjunction with other things, although in Fritz's case it may merely have been that he was 74 and had been imbibing tobacco by the metric ton for most of his life. I'm more surprised he lasted as long as he did!