14 DAY TRIAL // Constance Wilde, the wife of acclaimed author Oscar Wilde, passed away on 7 April 1898, at the age of just 39, in Genoa, Italy. For years to come, the circumstances that led to her untimely demise remained a mystery.
However, a recent report in The Lancet claims to have solved this puzzle. Thus, researchers say that, having analyzed symptoms described in several unpublished letters provided by one of her grandsons, they finally figured out what killed her.
In a nutshell, it appears that, about a decade before she passed away, Constance Wilde developed multiple sclerosis. This condition boils down to the fact that the immune system turns against the coating protecting nerve fibers and destroys it.
The disease was first described by a neurologist named Jean-Martin Charcot back in 1868, and although existing drugs can somewhat slow its progress, scientists are yet to come up with a cure for it, Medical Express informs.
It is believed that, for about 7 years, Constance Wilde experienced severe episodes of nerve fiber degeneration from which she somehow managed to recover to a certain extent. A couple of years before her death, the disease took a turn for the worse.
Thus, the young woman found herself experiencing pains, weakness, exhaustion, partial facial paralysis and trembling in the limbs on a regular basis, specialist Ashley Robins at the University of Cape Town Medical School in South Africa explains in The Lancet.
Hoping to be cured, she let an Italian surgeon identified as Luigi Maria Bossi operate on her and remove a uterine fibroid that this doctor had told her was causing her symptoms. She died shortly after, most likely due to bowel obstruction or blood poisoning.
Constance and Oscar Wilde married in May 1884 and had two sons together. The two parted ways in 1895, after the author was accused of being attracted to other men and arrested.
