Since 1995, the emeritus professor of Medicine of the AUTH, Thomas Gerasimidis, has been investigating the causes of death of the Greek soldier Alexander the Great, even rejecting other theories. Alexander the Great died of acute necrotizing pancreatitis! This conclusion was reached after many years of study, by the scientific research carried out by the emeritus professor of Medicine (Surgery &Vascular Surgery) of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Mr. Thomas Gerasimidis and his team, which consists of six other scientists.
Acute necrotizing pancreatitis, according to the professor, was caused by gallstones combined with a heavy meal and a large amount of wine. Mr. Gerasimidis has been investigating the causes of the death of the Greek soldier since 1995. He and his team have literally "searched" every bibliography (Arrian, Ptolemy, Plutarch, Curtius, etc. but newer) that describes the last days of M. Alexandros in order to record the medical history.
“We came to the cause after much research and judged on the basis of the symptoms presented by Alexander the Great. Just like any doctor who records a patient's symptoms does. That is, evidence-based medicine," said Mr. Gerasimidis, adding that even today 30% of patients with acute necrotizing pancreatitis die.
The symptoms of M. Alexandrou
As Mr. Gerasimidis writes in his research:
"The onset of the symptom was severe abdominal pain after a rich meal and wine followed by fever and daily progressive, fatal deterioration during 14 days." He notes, however, that "indisputable findings still remain to be revealed", if they were found:
-The tomb of M. Alexander
-The mummified body and
-If they were subjected to forensic examination and autopsy
The research of the emeritus professor of Medicine is extremely detailed for every single day out of the 14 that M. Alexander's illness lasted.
"On the first day, Alexander the Great experienced severe pain in the abdomen, right hypochondrium and high fever, and the doctors induced vomiting. A cold bath followed, apparently to reduce the fever," says Mr. Gerasimidis, who for his research studied dozens of books (translations of ancient texts), such as Plutarch's book, "Alexander" from the translation of V. Papadopoulos and the publications "Paideia" (Thessaloniki 2003), the book by G. Kitsopoulos (1986, Altintzis publications 1986) but also the book by I. Kargakos "Alexander the Great, the human phenomenon".
On the second day, M. Alexandros feels exhausted and shivering while having colic pain again. However, he went to the palace of Medius who had replaced his friend, Hephaestion who had died and again partook in a great heavy meal with drinking to the point of drunkenness. On the third day, the high fever continues with sweating and chills, while at the same time M. Alexandros showed heavy breathing and exhaustion.
In the following days, his health condition worsens with high fever, jaundice, clouding of clarity, with delirium until finally on June 13, 323 BC, (the month of Daisius for the Macedonian calendar), Alexander the Great "with severe putrefaction dies of septic shock", emphasizes Mr. Gerasimidis.
Theories about the death of M. Alexandros and why the AUTH team debunked them
In his scientific research, Mr. Gerasimidis has excluded, based on the symptomatology of the patient Alexander the Great, other causes of death that have been written.
M. Alexandros died of malaria.
“Although the main symptom was fever, it was not the type of fever associated with malaria. Intervals of relapsing fever, which could indicate tertiary or quaternary fever, were not reported. In addition, malaria does not usually cause death in this way or so soon," states Mr. Gerasimidis' study.
Pneumonia as the cause of death of M. Alexandros.
"The symptoms do not match pneumonia which rarely causes abdominal pain and whose main symptom is fever. In the case of M. Alexander who entered the Euphrates river the fever was present. So it cannot have been caused by the cold water", argues Mr. Gerasimidis.
He has also ruled out being ill with typhoid fever , as at that time there was no epidemic, while the abdominal pain should have been preceded by diarrhea which did not occur in M. Alexander. Mr. Gerasimidis has also ruled out the West Nile virus, because as he pointed out, it causes encephalitis and not abdominal pain and delirium.
"Lately they're talking about necrophany, Gullain-Barret syndrome , but this due to paralysis of the respiratory muscles would cause cyanosis that his doctors would see," Mr. Gerasimidis clarifies to Sputnik.
In fact, in his study, he writes characteristically:
"The case of Alexander suffering from Gullain-Barret syndrome cannot be considered plausible as his main symptoms were fever and abdominal pain. These symptoms are not considered to accompany Gullain-Barret syndrome. Furthermore, the view that Alexander showed progressive paralysis while maintaining his cognitive functions cannot be true, as all available sources describe a progressive loss of consciousness.”
Deliberate poisoning of Alexander the Great was the greatest theory and one could draw rich material from the royal newspapers, which, as Mr. Gerasimidis mentions, were destroyed in the fire of the library of Alexandria.
Arrian has written three versions about his poisoning, one of which wanted M. Alexander's teacher, Aristotle, to send the poison to Antiparos to avenge his student for the death of his nephew, Callisthenes.
“Arrian had written that he mentioned the poisoning theories, but as he pointed out in his texts he did not believe them. Is it possible for the wise teacher, Aristotle to poison his best student? At that time there were no chemical poisons, only plant and animal poisons. Together with the Professor of Toxicology at the Medical School, Nikolaos Raikos, we searched and found that at that time there were 114 such poisons. Thus, substances such as the hemlock that Socrates drank, strychnine, hydrogen cyanide etc. if he drank any of them he would die in a few hours as did Socrates. He wouldn't have lived 14 days," emphasized the emeritus professor of Medicine.
Still, Mr. Gerasimidis rejects that he died of depression, due to the death of Hephaistion, as, as he mentions, the withering can weaken the defense system and the person becomes vulnerable to infections, but, he says, "M. Alexandros did not have depression".
"Proof that even in the first days of his illness he was working with his generals for the next campaign," he explains. Finally, it should be noted that the study has been presented at conferences, most recently the 16th Panhellenic Conference on Surgical Infections and the 8th Panhellenic Conference on Trauma and Emergency Surgery that took place a few days ago in Thessaloniki.
SOURCE:SPUTNIK