What was wrong with king herod

Flavius Josephus, a Jewish historian who wrote about the infamous king roughly years after his death, described the leader as a productive, successful builder in his youth who became increasingly paranoid and ruthless during the final decade of his year reign.

Herod the Great eventually killed three of the sons from his 10 wives. When the brother of his favorite wife, Mariamme, roused his suspicions, he invited the high priest to a swimming party and, during a rough game of polo, had his men drown the brother.

Next, Herod ordered the killing of Mariamme's grandfather and finally, suspecting Mariamme had betrayed him, he killed his most beloved wife. The leader is probably most notorious for the "Massacre of the Innocents," as described in the gospel of Matthew.

When, upon hearing that a new king of Jews had been born in Judaea, Herod ordered the killing of all male infants of Bethlehem aged 2 years or younger.

When he realized his own death was imminent, Herod directed his sister to assemble the leading men of distinction from all parts of the nation into a large arena and ordered they be killed as soon as he died. Once again, pathologists and clinicians attending this year's conference were asked to tackle historical texts to determine what killed their famous, albeit very deceased "patient.

While it is impossible for anyone to ultimately prove or disprove Hirschmann's new theory, largely because there are no remains to examine, previous "historical autopsies" have been published in the American Journal of Medicine and the New England Journal of Medicine. A classic "bad boy" of the Bible, scholars believe the headstrong Herod died in 4 B.

After hearing of the birth of Jesus, called the newborn King of the Jews by the three visiting wise men, Herod became enraged and tried to kill him off. But while biblical scholars could explain these deaths, historians had no clear explanation as to what killed Herod -- except for a few details laid out by Jewish scholar Flavius Josephus.

Previous subjects include Mozart, Claudius and General Custer. As a Herod expert, Richardson is also taking part in the conference. From these early conflicts, you can draw clear comparisons to the conflicts in that part of the world today. Herod the Great was ethnically Arab, but Jewish by religion, a combination that is even more mind-boggling today than it must have been 2, years ago.

And in a way, his influence is still felt now. It is an aggressive, necrotizing flesh-eating microbial infection of the male genitalia. The blood supply to the genitals is restricted, and gangrene develops. As the infection progresses, the surrounding tissue swells and rots, and fever, chills and malaise set in.

See Subscription Options. Go Paperless with Digital. More than 2, years after his death, medical detective work has revealed what most likely killed Herod the Great. According to the Bible, the tyrannical ruler of ancient Judea ordered numerous executions during his reignincluding those of countless newborn males during the infamous Slaughter of the Innocentsbut the cause of his own demise has long eluded scholars.

The new findings, presented last Friday at the historical Clinical Pathological Conference in Baltimore, suggest that he succumbed to a combination of chronic kidney disease and an unusual genital infection.