Re: Caterina Sforza, continued...

[RSRICHMOND@xxxxxxx]

Nick Pelling notes about Caterina Sforza:

>>She suffered from "quartan fever" for most of her life (whatever that is - 
sorry, I don't know), usually carrying a rabbit's heart in a white cloth 
near her heart to protect her against recurrence of it.

As to her death: officially, it was from "male de costa" - which roughly 
translates as "rib sickness" - though it was actually liver disease, 
compounded by peritonitis and pleurisy. There's a book entirely devoted to 
analysing this:<<

Quartan fever is chronic malaria caused by the particular malarial parasite 
Plasmodium malariae. It is occurs in all malarious countries, though it is 
never a very common form of malaria (except in West Africa). Patients have an 
episode of fever and chills every three days (unlike tertian malaria, where 
the ague occurs every other day). Quartan malaria is much more of a chronic 
disease than are other forms of malaria, often not "burning out" after many 
years. Death in chronic kidney failure is fairly common, and could have brou
ght about the symptoms ascribed to liver disease.

Bob Richmond
Knoxville, Tennessee USA