A Neurological Mystery from History: The Case of Claudius Caesar

Abstract

The Roman emperor Claudius suffered from a wide range of physical tics and disabilities. Many scholars have explained these symptoms by hypothesizing that Claudius suffered from cerebral palsy.

However, this hypothesis is dated and does not take into account all of the evidence available. This article re-examines ancient historical sources in the light of modern medical knowledge in an attempt to retrospectively diagnose the cause of Claudius's problems. In doing so, it suggests that Claudius may have suffered from Tourette's syndrome.

Keywords:

• cerebral palsy
• emperor Claudius
• Tourette's syndrome
• Roman history
• history of medicine

I thank Dr. Lubna Karim, Dr. Thomas Hall, and Dr. Jacob Field for helpful comments.

Notes

¹In this citation the number refers to a section of an ancient source, in this instance Suetonius' The Twelve Caesars (Claudius) section 2, and the year is the date of publication of the quoted translation. This syle of citation is used for all ancient sources in this paper.