Post by Joanna on Jan 3, 2015 4:08:08 GMT -5
Mystery Illness that Killed Oscar Wilde's Wife Identified
Constance Lloyd Wilde (later Constance Holland) died April 7, 1898, following surgery on her spine. The sudden death of the wife of Oscar Wilde at the age of 40 has long been a mystery. In the 116 years since she met her tragic end, speculative theories have ranged from spinal damage following a fall down stairs to syphilis caught from her husband. Now the mystery may have been solved. Merlin Holland, grandson of the Irish wit and author of The Picture of Dorian Gray, The Importance of Being Earnest and Lady Windermere’s Fan, has unearthed medical evidence within private family letters, which has enabled a doctor to determine the likely cause of Constance Wilde’s demise.
The letters reveal symptoms associated with multiple sclerosis. Her doctors misdiagnosed her condition, one of them resorted to dubious remedies and the other botched an operation that claimed her life a few days thereafter. The letters detail symptoms that progressively robbed her of the ability to walk, riddling her body with pain and leaving her with excruciating headaches and extreme fatigue.
Although multiple sclerosis was by then certainly known within the medical profession, the seriousness of her condition went unrecognized. She turned to an unnamed German “nerve doctor,” whose eccentric treatments involved baths and electricity, and to an Italian physician, Luigi Maria Bossi, who believed that neurological and mental illness could be cured with gynecological operations. Days after Bossi preformed a procedure – having previously conducted an operation which failed to improve her health – she lapsed into unconsciousness and died. Some 20 years after her death, he faced unrelated accusations of unethical behavior and professional misconduct and was shot dead by a patient’s jealous husband.
Mrs. Wilde’s brother, Otho Lloyd, contemplated legal action, but realized its futility. She had agreed to go under Bossi’s knife – against the advice of other doctors. “It cost her her life,” Holland declares. “Ultimately, both Bossi and the hapless Constance met their ends tragically – he by the bullet of an assassin and she by the knife of an irresponsible surgeon.”
The Lancet, Britain’s leading medical journal, has taken the evidence seriously and will publish a paper Friday jointly written by Holland and Ashley H. Robins, a specialist at the University of Cape Town medical school in South Africa. Holland says he hopes having the evidence peer-reviewed in the Lancet would put an end to speculation about his grandmother’s death. Holland believes it brings closure for Constance, who died less than a year after her husband’s release from prison.
Hers was a troubled life. Constance and her brother were brought up by their grandfather after their mother remarried. She married Wilde in 1884 and, after his imprisonment for homosexual acts in 1895, fled with their two sons to Europe, changing their surname to Holland, an ancestral family name, and eventually settling near Genoa.
The papers include around 130 letters between Constance and her brother, dating from 1878 until her death.
Holland says: “While my mother was alive, she didn’t particularly want anyone to have access to letters … She [was] frightened of what, in an age of sensationalizing everything, someone might do with them.”
One biography refers to spinal injury caused by a fall at her home, while another records a gynecological operation, but there were few details. Holloand says: “People somehow never put two and two together and thought: ‘Why is a gynecologist operating on her spine?’”
The letters reveal that Bossi undertook surgery that involved removing fibroids, or benign tumors. “He had totally wrongly diagnosed what was the matter with her – although the fibroids were there – even today, operating on fibroids … is dangerous,” he adds. “In those days … it was an extremely dangerous operation.”
The Lancet paper includes passages from her letters. In 1894, she wrote: “I am alright when I don’t walk.” By 1895, her ability to walk had deteriorated and she reported Bossi “undertakes to make me quite well in six weeks and I shall be glad to be able to walk again.” But her hopes were dashed. She wrote in 1896: “I am lamer than ever and have almost given up hope of ever getting well again.”
In closing this chapter of his grandmother’s life, Holland observes: “I rather feel it will put Constance to rest, poor thing.”
Constance Wilde is buried in Genoa, Italy.
Sources: Dalya Alberge, The Guardian, January 1, 2015, and The Lancet, January 3, 2015.
