Mad King George III Was Bipolar

Claims that he suffered from porphyria seem highly unlikely

In the later part of his life, King George III (born 1738, reigned 1760–1820) suffered recurrent periods of mental disturbance and delirium, which his physicians were unable to control. He first showed signs of serious mental illness in 1788 and finally succumbed to permanent mania and dementia in 1810.

In the mid-1960s mother and son psychiatrist team Ida Macalpine and Richard Hunter attributed the king’s condition to the inherited blood disorder porphyria, a rare disease that can lead to epileptic­ like seizures and mental illness. Yet, according to psychiatrist Timothy Peters of the University of Birmingham, this diagnosis has never been substantiated and recent research has shown that much of it was based on a selective interpretation of evidence. In 2010, Peters and historian Dr David Wilkinson re-examined the huge amount of available data and concluded that bipolar disorder (also called manic depression) was a far more probable explanation for the king’s condition.

Key to the diagnosis of porphyria were the king’s six episodes of ‘discoloured urine’ (which Peters argues is not in itself a feature of acute porphyria). A detailed examination of the records show that blue urine followed six reports of normal yellow urine during the same…