Towards the end of the 18th century, men’s fashion was recognizable as a suit consisting of coat, waistcoat, and trousers(knee breeches at that time). Much like today’s atrocity in fashion, the trousers were tightly fitted and our featured gentleman found them painful to wear.
He had quite the depressing life of lost friends and unrequited love, yet it was also dotted with one immortalizing success. A late life development in his health proved the most physically painful and terminal, being greatly exacerbated by the close fitting fashions.
Our gentleman suffered from a rare malady known as hydrocele testis, the abnormal and extreme swelling of the testicles, a quite painful condition.
As the 1780’s drew to a close, the condition grew worse and many surgeries could only temporarily offer solace. He began to withdraw from society as the swelling became disfiguring and agonizing.
By 1793, after the death of a close friend’s wife, his condition was quite serious with his health failing rapidly.
The final surgery to offer respite from his torment occurred in January of 1794.
ALAS! Today in History, this day of 16 January 1794, Edward Gibbon, author of his monumental magnum opus “The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire”, perished at the age of 56. That last, and fatal, surgery had left him with peritonitis, a horrid infection of the abdomen’s inner wall which covers the abdominal organs. It would have been a death of unrelenting pain and misery.
ALAS! Today in History! 16January1794
