#SIMON BOLIVAR HOMETOWN SKIN#

'If he'd been able to come back and to gather around him some powerful, like-thinking nation builders, they might have been able to create his ideal of having one Spanish speaking South American country, rather then they all being split up and warring among themselves,' Dr. He says if doctors then had treated the poisoning, Bolivar might have lived longer. John Dove is a retired spinal surgeon and a Bolivar scholar. Auwater thinks he consumed it too, simply by drinking the water.ĭr. Auwaerter said.Īrsenic was their aspirin, their common painkiller.Īlso, Bolivar traveled and battled extensively, in Peru and other mountainous areas where arsenic is a common mineral found in ground water. The best treatment available was arsenic, so that was what people reached for when they had unexplained health problems,' Dr.

'Political leaders of their day may have had VIP (Very Important Person) medicine. Auwaerter says Bolivar slowly poisoned himself, unintentionally. But not poisioning by political enemies, as in an assassination. He investigated a variety of other causes. So, for the past year, he reviewed something no historian ever had: Bolivar's medical records dating back 10 years before his death in 1830. Auwaerter says that range of symptoms is not typical of tuberculosis.

#SIMON BOLIVAR HOMETOWN SKIN#

'He had terrible headaches, the skin darkening, the weight loss, the weakness, the gastrointestinal complaints, the arthritis,' he explained.ĭr. Paul Auwaerter is the director of infectious diseases at the prestigious Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. In the past, the doctors studied Florence Nightingale. This group of doctors meets annually to challenge medical autopsies of famous historical figures. Tuberculosis was listed as the cause of death.īut now, almost two centuries later, modern medicine is discovering a new possibility. He weighed barely 22 kilograms when he passed. So when Bolivar developed a chronic cough, fever and weight loss, the same bacterial infection was suspected.

His sword is presented to heads of state, as Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez did in April to Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin.īut some think Simon Bolivar's death was never fully explained. His nickname is 'The Liberator' for freeing six South American countries from Spanish rule. Simon Bolivar lead troops to victory in 100 battles. Even on the streets of North America, there is little question of what he became. He was born in 1783 in Caracas, Venezuela, to sixth-generation Spanish Americans. South American liberator Simon Bolivar was thought to have died in 1830 of tuberculosis. A group of doctors in the United States is questioning how one of South America's most celebrated men died.

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