Choroby królewicza Aleksandra Sobieskiego i porady lekarskie z nimi związane.
Illnesses of the Criwn Prince Aleksander Sobieski and related physicians' diagnoses

Summary/Abstract: The article is devoted to Aleksander Sobieski’s diseases and diagnoses issued for him by physicians not connected with the Polish court, but asked for their opinions on the crown prince’s health. Information about these diseases comes mainly from the accounts of Kazimierz Sarnecki, a resident of the Radziwiłł family at the Polish court, and from the correspondence of Maria Kazimiera. The documents provide information on the smallpox that the prince and his youngest brother went through, and then on some unspecified conditions accompanied by headaches and perhaps seizures, sometimes referred to as epilepsy. Finally, when in Rome, for nearly four years the prince got seriously and, as it turned out, mortally ill with rheumatoid arthritis, although the documents addressed in the article along with the pharmacopoeia from that period justify a suspicion that in this case, too, we dealt with epilepsy. Possibly, the cause of Alexander’s serious and ultimately fatal ailments was a permanent venereal disease. However, neither the physicians’ judgments nor the queen’s letters justify any conclusive statements concerning the illnesses and the cause of death of Sobieski.

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