Arsenic and the King of England

I just read a story where they found extremely high level of Arsenic in hairs of King George III. They think that this may have contributed to his madness. For those who don't know who King George III is, he was the King of England during the American Revolution. (Americans and Brits alike should know who he is, at least I hope so anyway :) ) Scientists believed that he suffered from a hereditary blood disorder called porphyria which in most cases led to psychotic episodes. Although they don't know exactly how the arsenic got into the blood of the king there are several theories. One is that it came from antimony, which was in medicine given to him for stomach problems. Antimony is an element that was widely used throughout the centuries for many different things. Anyway they aren't 100% sure why he had such high levels in his body; they ruled out that it was sprayed on by past museum curators for preservation because of the high levels.

Of course no one has ruled out possible poisoning. I'm sure there were a lot of people that would have wanted him dead. He lost the colonies and the "sun was setting on the British empire", as the saying goes.

I don't know I just thought that this story was interesting. I have a love/hate realtionship with modern technology. I'm one of those people that struggle to keep up with technology. I wish I had a knack for it but, alas, I don't! I guess I'll have to rely on my other talents, whatever they may be. I still haven't quite figured them out yet. One day I hope to be technologically saavy. Maybe someday it will happen.

Just think about how empty that last "paragraph" would have been without the word technology.