Madness of King George III

Cardio: Tachycardia and arrhythmia.

GI: Acute abdo pain, vomiting, diarrhoea or sometimes constipation.

Renal: purple urine.

Neuro: seizure, neuropathic pain.

The patient suffers from acute prophyria. To help with memory, I found an old film about it. Following are some memorable lines from the movie Madness of King George:

"Do you think that you are mad?

I don't know

I don't know

Madness isn't such torment

Madness isn't half blind

Madmen can stand

They skip. They dance

And I talk. I talk and talk and talk

I hear the words, so I have to speak them

I have to empty my head of the words

Something has happened

Something is not right."

"Yeah, I've always been myself, even when I was ill.

Only now I seem myself. And that's the important thing.

I have remembered how to seem."

Poor King George suffered the attacks some 100 years before the disease is recognised by the medical profession.