King Herod killed by kidney disease - researcher
King Herod probably died from chronic kidney disease with an unpleasant added complication that led to gangrene of the genitals, an expert said today.
The ruler of ancient Judea was a bloody tyrant who put to death one wife and three sons and ordered the Slaughter of the Innocents in a bid to kill the infant Jesus.
But his own life ended in a way that could be seen as divine retribution.
Jan Hirschmann, staff physician at the US Department of Veteran Affairs and professor of medicine at the University of Washington, said: ‘‘Herod the Great expired from chronic kidney disease probably complicated by Fournier’s gangrene.
‘‘The texts that we depend on for a close description of Herod’s last days list several major features of the disease that caused his death - among them, intense itching, painful intestinal problems, breathlessness, convulsions in every limb, and gangrene of the genitalia.’’
Previously it had been suggested that Herod died from complications of gonorrhoea.
But Dr Hirschmann found that not all of Herod’s symptoms fitted the theory.
Exploring a number of different possibilities, he discovered that the only one which could account for almost all the features of Herod’s illness was chronic kidney disease.
However, genital gangrene could not be explained by that diagnosis alone.
‘‘I finally concluded that the most likely explanation was that his chronic kidney disease was complicated by an unusual infection of the male genitalia called Fournier’s gangrene,’’ said Dr Hirschmann, who presented his findings at a meeting on historical clinical pathology in Baltimore, Maryland.
Peter Richardson, professor emeritus at the University of Toronto’s Department for the Study of Religion, who made a guest appearance at the conference dressed in full period costume as King Herod, said there was a direct connection between the issues of the First Century BC and 21st century Middle East.
‘‘Herod’s world has a lot of relevance to our own,’’ he said. ‘‘He was 100% Arab by ethnicity and yet Jewish by religion. Many Jews of the time disliked Herod, because he was not Jewish by inheritance. From these early conflicts, you can draw clear comparisons to the conflicts in that part of the world today.’’
