
New Research Finds that Caravaggio Died of Sepsis, Not Syphilis - smollett
https://hyperallergic.com/461573/new-research-finds-that-caravaggio-died-of-sepsis-not-syphilis/
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bobowzki
"published in a journal of infectious diseases, called The Lancet"

I realize not everybody knows the Lancet but as medical professional I
chuckled at this...

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busyant
If you follow the link, that's not quite where the error lies.

The article was actually published in "The Lancet Infectious Diseases", which
is a sub-specialty journal affiliated w/ The Lancet.

Just in case that's not clear...

* The blog-post/article suggests that the research article was published in "The Lancet."

* The Lancet is a prestigious British medical journal that publishes research on a broad range of medical topics.

* The research article was actually published in "The Lancet Infectious Diseases" which is a specialty journal affiliated with its more prestigious "mother journal" called The Lancet.

* The author of the blog-post seems to have not realized what The Lancet is, and incorrectly used its name.

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bobowzki
Thanks for the insightful comment!

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olliej
It’s conceivable he got sepsis through a syphilitic ulcer of course ;)

More realistically if it was sepsis you can get that from any infection the
reaches the blood stream - an infected cut, and animal bite, etc.

I’m also curious if they did test for lead content - I vaguely recall it
accumulating in bones, but that knowledge comes from an episode of macguyver
:)

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Herodotus38
Here is the paper from the medical journal:
[https://www.thelancet.com/journals/laninf/article/PIIS1473-3...](https://www.thelancet.com/journals/laninf/article/PIIS1473-3099\(18\)30571-1/fulltext)

Of note they did measure lead levels and they were very high, but they have
good evidence for staph.

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olliej
Oh, I didn’t think it was lead poisoning (I’ll leave that to actual scientists
:) ), it was more curiosity as to long term use of lead paint, etc.

Thanks for the actual article link.

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olliej
minor update -- apparently there's a deadline on editing? -- why upvotes for
my comment rather than for herodutus?

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jdswain
Simon Schama’s Power of Art series starts with an episode on Caravaggio. The
series is well worth watching and explains a lot about the artists lives.

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simon_Schama%27s_Power_of_Ar...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simon_Schama%27s_Power_of_Art)

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aaaaaaaaaab
“New reasearch finds that Xyz died of cerebral hypoxia, not heart attack!”

