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Another point re: the oranges is that Souberbielle may have thought the leg ulcer which could have been something as simple as an infected minor injury, in those pre-antiseptic days was scorbutic. Citrus fruit for scurvy was the latest thing in the late 18C! Thursday, 21 September The debate over Robespierre's health. In the popular TV forensic anthropologist Philippe Charlier - unchastened by the debacle over Louis XVI and his DNA - caused yet more controversy by his collaboration with Philippe Froesch in the now-notorious Robespierre "facial reconstruction".

Not content with proving Robespierre was an ugly thug, he also pronounced him to have been victim to a hitherto little known disease called "sarcoidosis".

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Historical diagnoses are always highly speculative but Charlier meant to be taken seriously - he even managed to publish his findings in The Lancet. Not surprisingly historians were quick to criticise; Peter McPhee was particularly affronted, since he found his article on Robespierre's "medical crises" cited as Charlier's chief authority.

Sarcoidosis, we learn, is "an autoimmune disorder involving the abnormal collection of chronic inflammatory cells that form as nodules in multiple organs" most usually the lungs and skin. The disease was not described until , so naturally it would not have been recognised in Robespierre's time. There are wide variations in presentation.

Robespierre death scene

According to NHS Choices, the most common symptoms are tender red bumps on the skin, shortness of breath and a persistant cough, though some sufferers have no symptoms at all. In some cases the condition clears spontanously, and there are both acute and chronic forms of the disease. All of which makes it hard to diagnose without x-ray and detailed medical examination.

Charlier, however, was not deterred: Robespierre suffered from "diffuse sarcoidosis with ophthalmic, upper-respiratory-tract nose or sinus mucosa , and liver or pancreas involvement. Peter McPhee's original article set out the evidence chronologically, based mainly on Robespierre's own statements in his correspondence.