Retrospective Diagnosis
The following people were not diagnosed with polio during their lifetime. A retrospective diagnosis is speculative and can never be certain.
| Name | Life | Comments |
|---|---|---|
| , ClaudiusClaudius | 10 BC – 54 AD | Roman Emperor from 41 AD to his death. Historians have attributed his physical ailments to several causes. Robert Graves' Claudius novels made polio a popular choice, but some modern historians prefer cerebral palsy or some other affliction. |
| Lane, Fitz HenryFitz Henry Lane | 1804–1865 | A painter, best known for his paintings of maritime and nautical subjects. Lane was afflicted with a disorder in childhood, once speculated as being polio, which left him with reduced mobility in his legs. However the notion that polio was responsible for his childhood of mobility have largely been discredited, for contemporary accounts cite that Lane's paralysis was due to "eating some seeds of the apple peru" (referring either to the common tomato or to the "peru-apple" also known as jimsonweed). |
| Longworth, Alice RooseveltAlice Roosevelt Longworth | 1884–1980 | A child of Theodore Roosevelt, the 26th President of the United States, and his first wife, Alice Hathaway Lee. She wore leg braces as a child and it is believed this was due to polio. |
| de Bourbon, Louis AugusteLouis Auguste de Bourbon | 1670–1736 | An illegitimate son of the French King Louis XIV and Madame de Montespan. It is thought that Louis-Auguste contracted infantile paralysis (polio) at the age of three which left him with a slight limp. |
| Mabini, ApolinarioApolinario Mabini | 1864–1903 | The first prime minister of the Republic of the Philippines, it is thought that Mabini contracted polio in 1896; he used a wheelchair for the rest of his life, and came to be known as the "Sublime Paralytic". |
| Scott, Sir WalterSir Walter Scott | 1771–1832 | A historical novelist and poet. He caught a fever, aged 18 months, which temporarily paralysed his right leg. Scott was left lame due to his withered leg. At the time, polio was not known to medicine. The retrospective diagnosis of polio is considered to be strong due to the detailed account Scott made. |
| , SiptahSiptah | reigned 1197 BC – 1191 BC | An Egyptian Pharaoh. Siptah's mummy has a deformed left leg, with the foot held vertically by a shortened Achilles tendon. Some historians point to polio as a cause, while others prefer a congenital defect such as cerebral palsy. |
Read more about this topic: List Of Poliomyelitis Survivors