How did King Herod die

A. Very unpleasantly, according to a report by medical detectives.< xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />

Q. Tell me more.

Q. What's Fournier's gangrene

A. His, um, genitals would have rotted away.

Q. Yuck! And who has worked this out

A. Clinicians and scholars in Baltimore, Maryland. They meet once a year to unravel how figures from the past might have died. The eighth annual Historical Clinical Pathologic Conference was given details of the theory by Prof Jan Hirschmann of the University of Washington, Seattle. He based his ideas on two accounts of Flavius Josephus, a Jewish historian, who reported Herod's death in 4BC.

Q. Such as

A. Josephus listed major features of the disease that killed Herod - including breathlessness, intense itching, limb convulsions, 'an inflammation of the abdomen, and a putrefaction of his privy member, that produced worms'. Hirschmann said: 'When I first looked at the general diseases that cause itching, it became clear that most of them couldn't explain a majority of the features of Herod's illness ... Chronic kidney disease can lead to depression, paranoia, and irritability.'

Q. Which would account for his terrible tempers

A. Yes - although his paranoia existed before his illness. That would have made things worse. Chronic kidney disease often causes ulcerations of the intestinal tract, which could have infected his scrotum and penis. It was also possible, said Hirschmann, that scratching allowed bacteria to be introduced into the skin, leading to the gangrene.

Q. A rotten death for a rotten man

A. Yes. Herod, son of an Idumean and an Arab woman, became a governor of Galilee at 16. After the murder of Julius Caesar, Mark Antony appointed him ruler of Judea. Herod fought the Parthians, rebuilt Jerusalem and married at least 10 times. His cruelty became legendary. The Emperor Augustus remarked that it was better to be Herod's swine than his son.

According to St Matthew's Gospel, Herod, fearing the coming of a Messiah after Jesus's birth, ordered the execution of infant boys in Bethlehem, forcing Mary, Joseph and the child to flee to Egypt. Hirschmann said of his death: 'It is a horrible way to go. It certainly makes the men in the audience uncomfortable when I talk about it.'

Q. What other deaths have this conference investigated

A.
Previous long-buried subjects have included Edgar Allen Poe, Alexander the Great, Beethoven, Mozart, General George Custer, and Pericles of Athens.

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Steve Cunningham