Ménière’s disease: Encyclopedia II - Ménière’s disease - Famous sufferers

Ménière’s disease - Famous sufferers

Alan B. Shepard, the first American astronaut, was diagnosed with Ménière’s disease in 1964, grounding him after only one brief spaceflight. Several years later, surgery (which was then at the experimental stage) was performed, allowing Shepard to fly to the Moon on Apollo 14.

It is suspected that Charles Darwin suffered from Ménière’s disease. It is based on a common list of symptoms which were present at Darwin's case, such as tinnitus, vertigo, dizziness, headaches, nausea, motion sickness, vomiting, gastrointestinal problems, continual malaise and tiredness, and a peculiar stance of the head, present in many pictures of Darwin. Motion sickness was present throughout his life, and became apparent very early, when he suffered horribly of sea sickness during the whole Beagle voyage. Darwin himself had the opinion that most of his health problems had an origin in his 4-years bout with sea sickness. Later, he could not stand travelling by carriage, and only horse riding would not affect his health. In addition, psychic alterations often accompany chronic Ménière's, such as agoraphobia, depersonalization and even paranoia. Darwin hunted a lot when he was young and could have damaged his inner ear with the repeated noise of shooting, and that one of diagnoses that he received from his physicians at the time was that of "suppressed gout", which was an early name for Ménière's. The source of Darwin's illness, though, is not known for sure. See Charles Darwin's illness for more details.

Jonathan Swift, author of Gulliver's Travels (1726), is generally thought to have had Ménière’s since age 23.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Famous sufferers", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki