Alexander the Great died in Babylon, sometime between June 10 and 13, 323 BC. Approximately one month before reaching the age of 33. His death has always been shrouded in mystery and speculation. Multiple theories have been proposed, from poisoning to alcoholism or various infections, without it being possible to prove any of them.
Now a researcher from the New Zealand University of Otago points to a new possibility:Guillain-Barré Syndrome. In an article published in The Ancient History Bulletin Dr. Katherine Hall states that none of the theories proposed so far offers a plausible and feasible explanation for a fact recorded by one source:that Alexander's body did not show any signs of decomposition for six days after death .
At that time this fact was explained by the belief that Alexander was a god, or at least had divine ancestry. Although it is also true that a legend tells that the body was preserved by being covered with honey.
According to Hall, along with this delayed decomposition, he was said to have developed fever, abdominal pain, and a progressive, symmetrical, ascending paralysis, as well as that he had remained compos mentis (lucidly, in his right mind) until just before death.
This would be consistent with a diagnosis of Guillain-Barré Syndrome contracted by a Campylobacter pylori infection (a bacterium that is related to duodenal ulcer and other gastric infections, and is the cause of the syndrome). The key element here is alertness, which, in the face of fever and abdominal pain, has not received, according to Hall, due attention.
Thus, Alejandro would have contracted a variant of acute motor axonal neuropathy (precisely associated with Guillain-Barré syndrome) that caused paralysis but kept him conscious. According to Hall, the death occurred due to the difficulties in diagnosing this disease in ancient times, whose treatment depended more on the presence of breathing than on the pulse .
The paralysis of the body together with the decrease in oxygen intake would have led witnesses to believe that he was dead. Adding to the confusion would have been a possible failure in the self-regulation of his body temperature and the fixation and dilation of his pupils. Hall points out that therefore, the preservation of his body would not have had any miraculous or divine cause. He just wasn't dead, just paralyzed. His real death, says the researcher, would have occurred six days later.
If the theory is correct, we would be facing the most famous case of pseudothanatos or false diagnosis of death ever recorded. And the Guillain-Barré syndrome would give coherence to all the varied elements that have been told about his death, integrating them with a certain elegance.