Did Shakespeare Anticipate Mad Cow Disease?

I just read an amusing article published in Clinical Infectious Diseases, a medical journal published by University of Chicago, in 2006. The article is titled "'Strange things I have in head': Evidence of Prion Disease in Shakespeare's Macbeth". You can access it (I hope) at http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/CID/journal/issues/v42n2/37985/37985.text.html

The article purports to show that Macbeth may have acted the way he did because he was suffering from a disease. Prion diseases (formerly known as slow-virus diseases) are a collection of neurologic diseases affecting humans and animals. The three human forms are Familial fatal insomnia, Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease and variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease. This last one is considered the human form of bovine spongiform encephalopathy, more commonly known as Mad Cow Disease.

The article in question uses multiple quotations from Macbeth to show that Macbeth may have been suffering from variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease . The article is well written and contains a really good table (which can be accessed from the web page above-click on Table 1 in the text of the article) with all of the quotes and which of the prion diseases the quote fits best.

I really love this kind of fun with Shakespeare. It just shows how much there is to find in there.

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Waugaman named Oxfordian of the Year 2021

by Linda Theil Waugaman taking his first selfie in his home office in Potomac Maryland The Shakespeare Oxford Fellowship named Richard Waugaman, MD, Oxfordian of the Year 2021 at their annual conference on October 9, 2021. Waugaman is a clinical professor of psychiatry on the faculty of Georgetown University, a training and supervising analyst emeritus with the Washington Psychoanalytic Institute, and is in private practice of psychiatry and psychoanalysis in Potomac, Maryland. For over a decade Waugaman has published extensively on the topic of Shakespeare authorship including work in journals outside the normal reach of the subject such as Psychoanalytic Quarterly , the International Journal of Psychoanalytic Studies , and Contemporary Psychoanalysis . He has presented on the topic before such diverse venues as the International Psychoanalytic Congress, the New Directions Conference, the Shakespeare Association of America, the American Shakespeare Center, and the Cosmos Club in ...

What's a popp'rin' pear?

James Wheaton reported yesterday in the Jackson Citizen Patriot that the Michigan Shakespeare Festival high school tour of Romeo and Juliet was criticized for inappropriate content -- " So me take issue with sexual innuendoes in Michigan Shakespeare Festival’s High School Tour performances of ‘Romeo & Juliet’" : Western [High School] parent Rosie Crowley said she was upset when she heard students laughing about sexual content in the play afterwards. Her son didn’t attend the performance Tuesday because of another commitment, she said. “I think the theater company should have left out any references that were rated R,” Crowley said. “I would say that I’ve read Shakespeare, and what I was told from the students, I’ve never read anything that bad.” She said she objected to scenes that involved pelvic thrusting and breast touching and to a line in which Mercutio makes suggestive comments to Romeo after looking up the skirt of a female. The problem with cutting out...

Dudley nails it to the door

Michael Dudley author of The Shakespeare Authorship Question and Philosphy: Knowledge, Rhetoric, Identity (Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2023) Michael Dudley views his vocation of librarian at the University of Manitoba with dialectic rigor. "Librarianship has a duty to inform democracy," he said in Kathryn Sharpe's virtual bookclub on April 27, 2024. Dudley discussed his new book The Shakespeare Authorship Question and Philosophy: Knowledge, Rhetoric, Identity published by Cambridge Scholars Publishing last fall. Update 08/21/24 Dudley's book is also available as an ebook from Google Play . In SAQ and Philosophy Dudley uses the hammer of logic to nail his accusations against the barricaded door of the Shakespeare citadel. "The question of Shakespeare's authorship is a malformed debate practiced in an unethical fashion," Dudley said. When asked why his book is important, Dudley said: "What sets my book apart from others on the authorship quest...

Oberon Shakespeare Study Group

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