When King George III suffered a mental breakdown in 1788 his doctor tried to keep it secret, but the Prince of Wales had different ideas. Eager to seize his father's power, the Prince spread word of George's illness all over town. He further advanced his cause by bringing in his own physician, Dr. Warren, to "treat" the king.
George was by turns depressed and agitated, and did and said things people found strange, but he had not taken leave of his senses. Indeed, some observers thought he was thinking more clearly than ever before. But he was not fit to rule, and no one understood what was wrong or how to help him. Under Dr. Warren's enlightened leadership, the royal physicians blistered the king's forehead to "draw the poison out of his brain." They forced him to take useless drugs -- ordering servants to sit on the king when he resisted -- and refused to let him have a fire in his room during the terribly cold winter.
Of course, the king did not thrive under this regime. Even Dr. Warren didn't expect his patient to recover. "He will not live to be certified a lunatic," the doctor stated.
A new set of physicians, Dr. Francis Willis and his son John, arrived on the scene. The Willises confined the king to a straitjacket when they deemed it necessary, and gave him medicine to make him vomit when they felt his behavior was getting out of hand, but on the whole they treated George more gently than the other doctors had. The king began to get better, and within a few months he was able to resume his royal duties.
Over the next twenty years King George suffered occasional brief relapses, but it wasn't until 1810 that he truly became the mad King George depicted in film and legend. The Prince of Wales was named Prince Regent and assumed the king's powers, and George was relegated to the role of laughable lunatic. Wild stories were told about him -- that he had addressed a tree as the King of Prussia, insisted on ending every sentence with the word "peacock," etc. etc. -- and many of these stories were completely untrue. What is true is that he spent his last years deaf, blind, lonely and confused, talking to the ghosts of his dead children.
Today it is widely believed that the king suffered from porphyria, a rare genetic disorder which interferes with the body's chemical balance. The symptoms include rashes, abdominal pain, and reddish blue urine, all of which George suffered. Untreated, it can affect the nervous system and lead to insanity. If King George were alive today, he would be treated with drugs and advised to avoid too much sunlight.
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