MAD CZARS

Ashburton Guardian, Volume VII, Issue 1678, 4 October 1887, Page 3

MAD CZARS

In tbp recently-published raemiors o Couut Vitzhum of Eckstact, proofs ar< given of tho hereditary character of men t*l disease whfoh baa bfflioted the Imperla family of Russia. All the bodb of tb< Oz*r Paul 1,, like that unhappy monarct ; himself, who was murdered iv 1801, be came aubjeot to fifca of insanity. Paul I had four sons — Czar Alexander 1., the Grand Dake Constant me Cz*r Nicholas 1., and the Grand Dake MichaeJ. Everj one of them, after his forty-fifth year, exhibited undoubted signs of mental derangement. This was not folly discovered, In the case of Nicholas I , until after the Czir'e death. An English physiclsn, however, aa Count Viizhum cays, had cccasion to notice the sppearanoe of hereditary disease m the Cz*r aa early as July, 1853, and he then predicted that the monarch h*d not more than two years of life m front of him. He made the prediction fn a letter ; to Lord Palmerston, m the hope that it might hinder the warlike complications which were threatening to disturb the peace of Europe. The Count had no doubt that if the war fever could have been allayed for the cpaoe of two years, until the half-mad Cz*r waa dead, thousands aud thousands of human lives would have been saved. The Emperor Nicholas died In Mar oh, 1855, abont four months earlier than the date predicted by. the physician The Count appeara to have no doubt that the Crimean War, so far as it depended upon Nicholas, was the rash act of a ruler " whose metal equipoise waa disturbed ". — fthat is to say, m plain English, who was actually mad. None of the four sons of Paul I. lived to be sixty years of age, and every cne of them Buffered from congestion of the brain after reaching hia forty-fifth year. AlexNnder I, died when ho was fortyeight years oolad — a miserable man, moody and despondent, aa Prince Metternioh h ■ painted him m his well-known portrait of th*t sovereign, " tired of ex stence/' Hfo brother, the Grand Duke C< B tantine, though not manifestly insane, gave frequent Blgns of mental disturbance, of which he waa himself so painfully oonBcious as to declare that ha did cot think himself a fit person to be entrusted with the reins of the Government. Hia conduct m the year 1830, at the outbreak of the revolution m Waraaw, will remain es the historical justification of his intollec (ual nnsouudnees. If he had bocoire Cz»r he would probably not have escaped the fate of his brother ; and as it wan, he had to be entrusted to the care < f his wife, the Princeas Lowicz, who was cautioned m the same way as a physician m charge of a patient who has intermittent fits nf inßanlt7. he died m his fifiy second year from congestion of tho brain. The Grand D jke Miohael was killed by a fall from his horse at the age of fe.rtyeight Some years before his death he had exhibited s'gna of undoubted mental disease, bo that one of hiß phyaic'ans did not hesitata to declare that he was on the road to certain insanity. The events of tha years 1845-52 were not calcu'ated to alloy the hereditary dispositions of tbe Imperial family of Russia, bat to excite and intensify them. Tnere is aomethiog terrible io the contrast between the outward position of the Czir Nicholas, upon tho bent of whose wili the fato of bo many millions io Europe were depending, and the diseased inward condition of his mind, f