New Interpretation of Galileo’s Arthritis and Blindness

Alberto Zanatta¹, Fabio Zampieri¹, Maurizio Rippa Bonati¹, Guido Liessi², Cesare Barbieri³, Scott Bolton⁴, Cristina Basso¹, Gaetano Thiene¹

¹Department of Cardiac, Thoracic and Vascular Sciences, University of Padua Medical School, Padua, Italy.
²C.M.S.R. Veneto Medica, Vicenza, Italy.
³Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Padua, Padua, Italy.
⁴Space Science and Engineering Division, Southwest Research Institute (SwRI), San Antonio, USA.

DOI: 10.4236/aa.2015.51005                

Abstract

Galileo Galilei (1564-1642) complained of several disorders during his life, the most important of which were chronic arthritic pains and bilateral blindness. These symptoms might be results from an immune rheumatic disease, namely reactive arthritis (urethritis, uveitis, arthritis), when Galileo started suffering with an episode of fever in June 1593. Padua University owns the fifth lumbar vertebra of the great scientist and we performed a series of anthropological and radiographic analyses on it. The anthropological measurements showed that the shape of the vertebra was normal as to exclude significant diseases. The study through radiography and Computed Tomography showed only a mild arthrosis documented by small osteophytosis. Eventually the disease evolved into blindness with a pannus restricting the pupils (uveitis). These findings support the occurrence of reactive arthritis. Alternatively to urethral infection, Galileo could have suffered from Chlamydia pneumoniae infection in 1593, which was complicated by reactive arthritis a couple of weeks later. Thereafter he complained several episodes of recurrent arthritis, which eventually culminated into uveitis and bilateral blindness.

Keywords

Anthropology, Arthrosis, Galileo Galilei, Paleoanthropology, Reactive Arthritis

Conflicts of Interest

The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

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