What Killed Burns – And What did Not?

Speaker : Professor Emeritus David Purdie (Hull & York University Medical School)

The poet and songwriter Robert Burns died in 1796, aged 37. There was no post-mortem and hence no tissue diagnosis. Detractors, commencing with unsigned obituaries, assigned the cause firmly to alcoholism.

This talk, illustrated by images from the National Archives, examines the evidence for a range of alternative diagnoses.