Crohn's in History

[grahamburgers]

So, I know Crohn's wasn't officially a "thing" until 1932 and the term "ulcerative colitis" was first coined in 1859... but the symptoms have been around for a lot longer than that.

So, I'm just wondering.... who in history is thought to have had Crohn's or colitis? Are there people in history who we know had it? I've read Alfred the Great (King of the Saxons until 899) supposedly had it. Can't imagine trying to deal with symptoms while dealing with the stresses of waging war and running a medieval kingdom.

Now that I'm posting this thread, it's dawned on me that Wikipedia probably has a list somewhere.

 

[KayleighMeek]

Apparently Charles Darwin is thought to have suffered with Crohn's disease or something similar and found stress a major impact on his health.

 

[mf15]

Here is the best IBD history I have found. Notice the increase from about
1890-1920 and onward for UC. Dose not specifically talk about famous people.
Takes sometime to load.
If you want famous people here is one.
Eisenhower had crohns, he shook my hand around 1951 or so, I might
have been 3.
Old Mike
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ibd.3780010103/pdf

 

[Lawrence89]

The above article is really interesting and definitely worth a read. Actually used a lot of it to piece together the history of IBD for my PhD introduction. Crazy to hear that the origins of UC go back to the time of Hippocrates!