Harriet Wheelock / Thursday 21 November 2019 Guest Post: What links Munchausen's Syndrome with Ireland? Today's guest post from Prof Des O'Neill, Professor of Medical Gerontology, TCD, and Director of the National Office of Traffic Medicine, RCPI. The thirtieth anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall has elicited a wave of reflection on linkages between Ireland and Germany at that remarkable turning point in history. On the eve of the anniversary a book on Irish links with the former East Germany was launched in the Royal Irish Academy. Notable in the speeches on the occasion was the sense of a long and rich history of linkages between our two countries. One which has largely missed public view connects Killarney with one of the greatest works of fantasy in German literature, an intriguing medical syndrome, an aerial adventure of our sister College in London, and the unhappy end of a brilliant rogue. Rudolph Erich Raspe, born in 1737 in Hanover, was a man of prodigious and wide-ranging talents. His academic star shone from an early age with works ranging from a celebrated treatise on volcanoes to poetry and philosophy, editing the posthumous works of Leibnitz. His international renown was reflected in election as a Fellow of the Royal Society in London. A major promotion was appointment as the Keeper of the collections of the Margrave of Kassel. As with many of the rulers of the patchwork of Duchies and principalities that was to become modern Germany, one manifestation of their temporal power was to amass collections of valuable treasures. The object of these collections was to impress subjects and other rulers. For Raspe, who had developed a taste for fine living beyond his means, the collection was also an irresistible temptation for plunder and substitution of valuable medals. Eventually caught in the act, he had to flee, arriving in England and quickly establishing himself as both a mining engineer and infiltrating the intellectual elite, collaborating with Horace Walpole on a treatise on oil paintings. Appointed to the assay office for Cornish tin mining, he hit on the idea of writing a fantasy based on the tall tales of colourful soldier, Baron Freiherr von Munchausen, who had led a distinguished military career in Russian-Ottoman war as well campaigns against the Swedes. The Baron had retired to a small town near Kassel, and gained a reputation for a colourful raconteur. Bust of Munchausen from Masterpieces from the Works of Gustave Doré (1887) (Source) He was less than pleased to find his adventures embellished and wildly exaggerated in Raspe’s version, published anonymously as Baron Munchausen's Narrative of his Marvellous Travels and Campaigns in Russia followed by a subsequent volume. A wild-fire international best-seller which nonetheless gained Raspe almost nothing by way of financial gain, the real-life Baron found himself pestered by visitors. Embedded to a greater extent in the cultural fabric of continental Europe than on these islands, Raspe’s books generated one of the most extraordinary German movies, a high budget colour version released in 1943, the year of Stalingrad, that still rewards viewing. A link to the Royal College of Physicians in London is that the Baron is said to have lifted its then domed home into the heavens by means of his hot air balloon and suspended it above the Georgian skyline for three full months. However, on account of the quality of the revelries and the copious quantity of food on offer, the Baron remarked that the members of the College didn’t even notice their elevated condition! More durable globally has been the persistence of the Baron in the medical condition of Munchausen’s syndrome whereby patients feign the symptoms of illness for a range of secondary gains, often undergoing multiple risky investigations and surgeries. First described by Richard Asher, an insightful and droll English clinician, he noted that “the persons affected have always travelled widely; and their stories, like those attributed to him (Baron Munchausen), are both dramatic and untruthful”. One of the most notorious names associated with the syndrome was an Irishman, Stuart McIlroy, born in 1915 in Donegal and admitted to at least 68 hospitals on 207 occasions in Ireland and Britain, undergoing many unnecessary operations and sporting a tracheostomy tube. Difficult to detect, and even more difficult to treat, we now also recognize Munchausen’s by proxy, where the factitious symptoms are provoked by the person affected either through a child or a frail older person. It was a feature of Raspe’s character that his prodigious skills were repeatedly undermined by his cupidity. A skilled mining engineer, he was also noted for seeding potential mining sites with markers of ore for extraction, and unsurprisingly he moved from post to post trying to keep ahead of his fast eroding reputation. His final years were spent in Ireland, with records tracing him to Carlow, the coal mines in Castlecomer and finally a copper mine in the Herbert estate in Killarney. The earliest plan extant of a mine in Ireland is that of Cahirnane, signed by Raspe. He died of a fever in 1794 and is buried in an unknown grave in the area, the site of which remains a subject of speculation. Map signed by Raspe (Source) The lack of a memorial in Killarney is surely a missed opportunity for celebrating our shared love of tall tales, fantasy and likeable rogues. Flurry Knox and Christy in The Playboy of the Western World may take a different route to our hearts and imaginations than Raspe and his wonderful creation but our lives are richer for a deeper intertwining of these streams of German and Irish imagination. Prof Des O'Neill