Was King Georges madness a consequence of a type of Porphyria?
The theory that King George III suffered from a certain type of porphyria has been widely published and defended in medical journals, books and movies… Had King James VI of Scotland not published a book on witchcraft we would not have known where to start on George III’s ancestry. He became the kingpin of the medical study. Through him the ‘possibility’ that porphyria came to the House of Hanover from the Stuarts was established… The first Scientific papers on ‘The Royal malady’ was published on January 8, 1966, in the British Medical Journal; by *Dr. Ida Macalpine and her son, Dr. Richard Hunter. Shortly thereafter they published the book ‘George III and the Mad Business’ *they claimed that George III’s attacks of insanity were caused by acute intermittent porphyria and in 1968 with a 2nd paper published in the British Medical Journal *they With the help of a famous expert in porphyrin chemistry, Professor C. Rimington, claimed that George III had a different disease, Variegate Po
